Look, everybody! David’s got Coombs with him!

Whether or not you worship at the altar of Roddenberry, we’re sure you will enjoy our LIVE interview with John Billingsley. Not only will we be discussing SG-1 Season Six’s “The Other Guys” but also Enterprise, The Man From Earth and John’s further career.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:44 – Opening Credits
1:12 – Welcome
1:20 – Guest Introduction
1:43 – Caught Up in Science Fiction
3:50 – Manny Coto
9:15 – Bird Calls
10:42 – Becoming Godlike
13:17 – More Optimistic Television
14:50 – Enterprise Had Some Great Star Trek
15:55 – Producing Years of Television
18:24 – Double-Dipping & Twigs
21:36 – Phlox Helped Make Enterprise
22:32 – “The Other Guys”
24:03 – Patrick McKenna
26:00 – Not Bringing Back Coombs
26:28 – Familiarity with SG-1
27:23 – The Script
28:38 – Surprise Guest
29:28 – Updates from Patrick McKenna
30:22 – Working with John Billingsley
32:34 – How to Say Goa’uld & Continuity
33:27 – Such a Family
34:54 – Fish Out of Water Situation
37:31 – Thank You, Patrick!
39:13 – Connecting With Fellow Comedians
40:38 – No Goa’uld Parts!
41:13 – Stargate’s Lower Decks Episode
43:08 – Star Trek Actors on Stargate
44:36 – Doug Jones and Prosthetics
45:30 – Star Trek and Stargate Similarities and Differences
47:28 – The Man From Earth
52:09 – Favorite Scientist
53:55 – Pranks on Enterprise
55:40 – Dressing Up for the Captain’s Birthday
57:54 – Denobulan Spouses
1:00:25 – Working on 24
1:01:30 – DeForest Kelley
1:02:26 – Leonard Nimoy
1:05:05 – Coombs in Modern Stargate
1:06:15 – “David’s got Coombs with him!”
1:06:30 – The Hollywood Coalition
1:09:40 – The Importance of Breaking Bread Together
1:10:40 – Helping Thousands
1:12:34 – Throwing Away Food
1:14:30 – Discovering Purpose
1:17:34 – Happy Birthday in Denobulan
1:18:10 – Returning with Patrick
1:19:08 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:21:04 – End Credits

***

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

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. It is my privilege to welcome on a personal acting hero of mine today, John Billingsley. He played Simon Coombs in Stargate SG-1, but he will always be in my heart as the great Phlox. John, how are you, sir?

John Billingsley:
I am wonderful. Thank you very much for the sweet introduction. I appreciate that.

David Read:
It’s wonderful to have you. You know, looking back on your body of work – so much of it’s science fiction – it’s hard to figure out where to start. Have you always been a fan of science fiction? Has it just been something you’ve fallen into? Tell me how you’ve gotten all caught up in it.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, you know, I think possibly people who watch a lot of science fiction, their perception is I’ve done more science fiction than other things. But I don’t know. Obviously, I was on a show for four years and that kind of tilts the, you know, the screen a smidge. But I don’t know that I would necessarily have said that I had more work in that genre than in other genres. I mean, there’s… I’ve been an actor since I was a kid. So I was a stage actor for many years. Of course, no sci-fi there. And then four years on [Star] Trek. But beyond that, if there’s anything I feel I’ve probably done more of, it’s I’ve serial killers and child molesters on crime dramas. So, you know, I was a big reader – [I] have been a big reader my whole life – so I certainly am fairly familiar with a lot of the great masters of science fiction prose. But I was not a huge TV watcher growing up. So, I can’t say that I came to the genre work from any great place of knowledge or passion, particularly.

David Read:
But you knew what it was about and you knew the effect that it could have on people.

John Billingsley:
Oh, sure, sure. I’d watched the original Star Trek. I was six when it premiered in 1966. So, I watched it in syndication when I lived in New York. And certainly when I booked Enterprise, I knew that it was a life-changing gig and that it was, you know, an opportunity to become part of an amazing – which it has been – an amazing lifelong journey; however many years have passed since our show ended. And our show was not, by any means… in fact it was [the] least successful show. But still, you’re part of an incredible family…

David Read:
That’s true.

John Billingsley:
…being part of the Star Trek universe. I’ve really enjoyed that.

David Read:
We recently lost Manny Coto.

John Billingsley:
Yes. I know we did; and I do a lot of things in my non-acting time, including I’m part of a team of people who do something called the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Purplestride Event. Manny passed away from pancreatic cancer, as did my mother, as did Jonathan Frakes’ brother, as did a lot of people. And Kitty Swink, Armin Shimerman’s wife, is a survivor. So we have a team, and this year we made more money than any team in the history of Purple Stride has ever made track against pancreatic cancer. And Juan Carlos Coto, Manny Coto’s brother, was a huge part of that.

David Read:
Where can people go to donate? I want to pull it up.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, the organization is called the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. And every year they do something called Purplestride, which is a walk that takes place all over the country, 60 cities. It took place this year on April 27th. But our team, which is Track Against Pancreatic Cancer, we have actually a month after this event to continue raising money. So if people want to kind of contribute, we have until the 27th of May, and that will count towards our total. The event is called Purplestride. If you go to Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Purple Stride, Track Against Pancreatic Cancer, you’ll find our team.

David Read:
OK. Purplestride is one word. [reads]: “Celebrities, survivors, and caregivers united and supporters nationwide at the ultimate walk to end pancreatic cancer.” I will be adding to this after our call. Pancan.org.

John Billingsley:
It’s really an amazing organization. I do a lot of charity work, and my mother passed away in 1990 from pancreatic cancer. At that time, the survivor rate was about 2%. It’s now up to almost 14%, which doesn’t sound like a lot, except it’s thousands and thousands and thousands of lives. And it’s, I think, to a great extent attributable to one of the things this group does so brilliantly, which is to raise awareness, not just for people who are afflicted and their families, but for doctors, many of whom have always felt like; pancreatic cancer, nothing I can do, walk away. There’s been a real sea change in people’s understanding that it’s not necessarily a death sentence. And there’s also been a sea change in terms of helping people understand that symptoms that they might tend to dismiss could be actually symptoms of pancreatic cancer and early detection means everything. My mother had backaches and stomach aches, and she just… she was a stoic. She was like, “Nah!” Finally, we got her to a doctor.

David Read:
Yeah. Suck it up.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. That was just her nature. By the time we got to the doctor, and you know, they did a test, then wait two weeks, did a test. By the time they discovered what it was like, “Yeah. You got a few months.”

David Read:
So early detection is so key. Wow. I didn’t realize so many of the Star Trek family had been affected.

John Billingsley:
Camden Toy passed away recently, if you know from Buffy. I don’t know if he was on Angel, but on Buffy. Yeah, yeah. It’s the third worst cancer and the fastest growing cancer, which sounds perverse since I’m saying that there actually is a higher survivor rate. But it’s also early detection means more people are saying, “I have pancreatic cancer.” Many people were passing away from pancreatic cancer without even really necessarily realizing that’s what they had.

David Read:
We have the technology, you know. It sounds like it’s largely a mindset change.

John Billingsley:
It is many things. It’s research, of course. And you know, the medical research is… although I’ve played many scientists on TV, in real life, I’m a bubble head. So I won’t pretend to actually explain what some of these amazing things are the docs are doing. They’ve been explained to me. And I just go, “Oh, yeah.”

David Read:
I play one on TV. So it’s going in, but I don’t know if it’s going…

John Billingsley:
In real life, I couldn’t spot the endocrine system with four hands. It’s like, “Where is it? Somewhere beneath the armpit? Or under the…?” However, I have gotten the chance to meet with a lot of doctors and a lot of people associated with this organization, and it is really extraordinary. They are doing a lot of… a lot of their funding goes to research. A lot of their funding is going to necessary lobbying so that the federal government kicks in more money. And cancer research is part of a continuum. The work that this organization is doing, it’s cancer research qua. A lot of it is directed towards; what is the issue with pancreatic cancer specifically. But any cancer researcher will tell you that the work being done on ovarian cancer, the work being done on pancreatic cancer, it’s all connected.

David Read:
Wow. OK.

John Billingsley:
Yeah.

David Read:
Well, after we’re finished talking…

John Billingsley:
We got right into the heavy stuff.

David Read:
No, go for the most important stuff first.

John Billingsley:
OK, now I have to make five jokes. I have to make five quick jokes so that you think…

David Read:
Once I’m done with this one, everyone can refresh the page and I’ll have links in the description below where you can, at the very least, educate yourself more on what’s going on.

John Billingsley:
Start talking about cancer, then I’ll end talking about hunger. In between, we can talk about Stargate.

David Read:
But I want to talk about a little bit more Star Trek first. Number one; the fact that they wouldn’t let you make bird calls after the pilot when you were trying to put them in is absolutely absurd. He was from a bird species, clearly, and they should have let you do [squawks] you know, rather than mastering the call for your bat.

John Billingsley:
I don’t think I don’t think he was necessarily clearly from a bird species; I just thought… you’ve obviously heard this story before that when I auditioned, they didn’t tell me anything except come in with a slight alien accent, so I interpreted that as: “Hmm, a funny voice and a lagniappe – what’s the little extra? What’s the Philip?” So I decided that perhaps on his own planet he was a bird, and I squawked.

David Read:
Yeah. It made sense to me.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, and it made sense to me, but clearly I was not intended to be the bird; they never made me look like a bird; they never talked… they just never said no. They never clearly said, “By the way, John, we hired you in spite of the squawking, not because of the squawking.” That would have been helpful. So, the first day on set, I wouldn’t have squawked and made an ass of myself.

David Read:
Oh, that’s funny.

John Billingsley:
I’m sure the crew was going like, “Why is this guy squawking in the middle of his scene?”

David Read:
“All the technical babble that he’s got to do, and on top of that he’s making bird calls.”

John Billingsley:
Yeah. Plus all the flapping. I mean, I was like, I was out in the backyard studying birds and like, “Buddy, I’m going to go flap around in the backyard for a while.”

David Read:
“Have fun, dear.”

John Billingsley:
All for naught.

David Read:
Oh, that’s funny. The other thing that I admire about you is that as much as I love, and I do mean love, Star Trek – it’s in my DNA since I was… I wasn’t allowed to watch anything but PBS and Star Trek. Yeah, and my dad wonders why I’m so mushy, you know, “Why aren’t you more tough?” “It’s because I didn’t watch Wile E. Coyote get blown up every five minutes.”

John Billingsley:
Wow, or every Western on television.”

David Read:
No. I was blown away by you saying… the truth… my issue about Star Trek is that it doesn’t explain us here [point] to us here [point] in the 22nd and 23rd centuries, and one of your quotes I’ll never forget is that, “From here now to somewhere out there at some point we all become gods” – and it’s like, “Yes! Someone said the quiet part out loud. How do you change the society from this point to that?”

John Billingsley:
And in fairness, and I try and say this as well, if I’m given the opportunity, I understand that the rebuttal to that, and Gene’s [Roddenberry] rebuttal to that is: that this is an aspirational program.

David Read:
Correct.

John Billingsley:
It’s not a toolkit: how do I help you become a better human being? This is about: imagine a time when we have become better human beings, and what we can do. At the same time, when he created Star Trek in 1966, we were in a peculiar period in world history. I think this was an odd and anomalous era, post-World War II, probably up until the early 1970s, when there was a sense of; yes, we lived under a nuclear shadow, but there was a sense of optimism, particularly in America, and a sense of coming togetherness: the idea of a United Nations and a World Bank, and any number of international structures that had seemingly come together to help address a lot of what had been viewed as insoluble problems in the post-World War I era, certainly. I think it’s interesting that Star Trek has to be viewed with historicity. At the time it was created, there was a more optimistic country and a more optimistic sense of possibility. We now live in, I think, a somewhat dark time. And I think Star Trek has changed and shifted a bit in response. And I think contemporary Star Trek is a little bit different than, and rightfully so, than Gene’s Star Trek.

David Read:
OK. Makes a lot of sense. The show is going to have to have a certain amount of evolution as it moves forward in order to maintain relevance with the people who are watching it. Also, at the same time, I think the success of The Orville, suggests, and you’ve stood on those sets, suggests that there is room for a more optimistic version as well.

John Billingsley:
Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s what I think is interesting about contemporary Star Trek is that, you know, Star Trek for years, it was; this is the iteration of Star Trek. You’re going to take it or you’re not going to take it. There’s one original series.

David Read:
That’s true.

John Billingsley:
There’s one Next Generation. And now there’s one Deep Space Nine. I mean, there’s one Voyager. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. There are now five iterations of Star Trek. There’s Prodigy. There’s Lower Decks. There’s Discovery. There was Picard. There’s Strange New World. And yes, there’s The Orville. So, there are a lot of different flavors of ice cream in the Star Trek universe. As I think there should be. I’m stunned, obviously as I think many people are in this universe, that Star Trek had this incredible recrudescence. I mean when our show ended, I thought, and I said for years, it’s like, “I was on the show that killed Star Trek.” Then the movies came along – the Chris Pine iteration – and I think people thought, “OK. Well, maybe there’s a little shelf life there,” The idea that all of this new television could be made, I don’t think many of us, many of my peers, saw coming at all.

David Read:
Yeah. You may argue, even tongue-in-cheek, that you were on the show that killed Star Trek, but…

John Billingsley:
I don’t anymore because I didn’t. But at the time, I thought I did.

David Read:
In terms of all of those classic shows, I rewatched the Xindi arc the most.

John Billingsley:
Oh. Interesting.

David Read:
There was something from the Season Two ending to getting back and having the planes shoot at the shuttle pod. That whole arc – there is some good sci-fi encapsulated in that. You can watch it one after another. I think it was ahead of its time. I think the darker tone, especially in that season with, you know, “We’re going to have to Raid this ship over here for their warp core, otherwise you know our entire planet gets blown up,” and you were right there saying, “Sick bay will be ready,” you know, that’s good Star Trek, man!

John Billingsley:
Manny Coto brought a real new sensibility to the show, and you know… I mean, I again, much of this I’ve said a bajillion times, but I have nothing but the utmost respect for Rick and Brandon. It’s so daunting to produce an hour of television every week.

David Read:
After all those years.

John Billingsley:
Year after year after year. And they did not… the studio and the network did not give them a break. I mean, there were a number of years in which there was overlap, when Next Generation was overlapping, as it was going off the air with the incoming Deep Space Nine. Again overlap with Deep Space and Voyager. We didn’t have an overlapping year with the Voyager show, but as soon as Voyager ended, we were supposed to start. And they wanted a year off. They just said, “Give us a year. Just give us a little bit of a sense… we need a breath, and we need to kind of really think about what the bible is for this new show.” Not only did they not give them that time, but the bible that they had brought forward, the studio and the network rejected. The first year of Enterprise was supposed to be us on Earth getting the ship off the ground. And whether that would or would not have… who knows? But I think it’s most notable to me that in the third episode, I bumped into Brannon [Braga] at Crafty [services], and he said, “Hey, if you have any ideas, feel free to drop by the office.” It’s like, “It’s episode three of Season One! You’re suggesting that I stop by with ideas?” I thought, “Oh, uh-oh!”

David Read:
I’m sure he was feeling down at that point. I’m sure, you know, he was probably being kicked around… because I thought that that would have been a great idea: launching the ship at the end of Season One. You know, it would have required a patience of the modern audience, I think, who are used to that.

John Billingsley:
It would have required patience of the modern audience. It would have, I would have assumed, probably been more political, maybe. I don’t know.

David Read:
Yeah. There would have been politics.

John Billingsley:
Who knows? I mean, for me, if there was anything that I would have wanted to do more of, and I think this is also from brief conversations I’ve either had or participated in in panels with with with Brandon, felt was true, is that I think there was a wish that it would have been a little darker. There’s an episode that I, again this is a story I’ve told a thousand times – at 64, everything I’ve said a thousand times… I should start making shit up, I really should. The time Dominic came to my trailer in a bikini, it was a game-changing experience. That’s going to be the thing. This is going to be the thing…

David Read:
Oh, Dominic.

John Billingsley:
Dominic’s going to be, “Why are you telling people [inaudible]? I didn’t own a bikini. I certainly wouldn’t have come to your trailer.” “No, I’m just fucking with you, Dominic.” There was an early episode… I used to kind of try and sneak peek the scripts. I’d go to the hair and makeup trailer. I think I can safely say now that my inn was the hair trailer… because I wasn’t featured, necessarily, in every episode. And, at that time, I had much more ambition – I don’t have any ambition now – and I was going to try and see if you know, “Hey. An episode I’m light in or not used at all, maybe I can get another show and do another show at the same time.” I believe, in fact, Stargate I was doing while I was shooting…

David Read:
Oh, during the middle of the Star Trek season. That was one of the questions I was going to ask you.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. I think, and I’m not positive, because there are a number of things they let me do, ”Out of time,” they let me do “Angel,” I did a number of things. I began to not double dip as it moved into this third or fourth season. It became a little trickier. They were using me a little bit more. I think I was possibly wearing out their patience. But at the time, it was like, “Am I going to be…” – so, I go to the hair trailer – “Am I going to be in this episode?” So they gave me the first draft of episode three or four. And there was a scene, because we were afraid of a teleporter, where somebody teleports back up from the planet.

David Read:
They got twigs sticking out of them.

John Billingsley:
Well, so that’s, no, the first draft, they had their ass where their head should be. You’ve heard all my stories.

David Read:
Oh, I haven’t heard that. I just remember the episode.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. Well, and the first draft was, it’s like, “Ahh! Jesus! Wow! His ass is where his head should be!” Or something, you know, horrible. Like, ergh. Which, I thought, “Oh, great! That’s great!” And then by the time, you know, the network…

David Read:
Oh, I didn’t know that.

John Billingsley:
And the final version was, “Oh, there’s a twig sticking out of his ear. Dr. Phlox will just cut that off.” That to me was the crystallization of what I thought was wrong with the show.

David Read:
Yeah. As long as all the parts be back up, Phlox will put him in the right places.

John Billingsley:
Well, or he doesn’t. Or you’ve got a crewman who’s like, you know, like in The Orville, it’s like “Ass-Man.” You know, it’s like, “Remember how that you got the… I remember that day!“ You know, the weapons, we were afraid the weapons were going to explode. There was an early episode, I think it was a second episode when we find a ship and we explore it and all the various crewmen are being drained of their lifeblood. They’re all dead. It’s like, “I love that!” Didn’t like the way the episode ended, but I thought, “Oh, we’re off on the right foot here if we’re going to be dark.” And then it began to kind of, I think, become a little bit too much like your daddy’s Star Trek, you know? Instead of leeching people, I was giving them a hypospray to cure their cancer. I would have preferred it have a little bit more of the sensibility that I think some of the current shows maybe have a little bit more of, you know.

David Read:
Yeah, the osmotic eels could have gotten some more work for sure.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, a little more twisted. You know, who’s to say that’s just my taste? I mean, that could have, you know, we could have only lasted two seasons if they’d done what Billingsley wanted. They never took any of my ideas. Picardo on Voyager, it’s like you know, Picardo – all he had to say was “I’m having an affair with Seven of Nine,” done, “I’m an opera singer,” done. You know, it’s like he would hide in the bushes, you know, so he would leap out at Rick and Brandon with these notions, and I think they just gave him whatever he wanted just to keep him at bay. But me, you know, any notion I had, it was like, “Uh-huh. No.”

David Read:
I just… episodes like “Dear Doctor” and – I can’t imagine that show without you, but that’s just me.

John Billingsley:
Well, it was my cockamamie ideas. I did, actually… I suggested, but I don’t think this is actually what they would say, I don’t think they heard it from me; was that Dr. Phlox hibernated and that they woke him up in an episode prematurely? Now, they did… that did get in there. I would say I thought of that, but they would say, “No, we thought of that independently.”

David Read:
“I don’t care what it tastes like!”

John Billingsley:
I wanted one time. Actually, the part I love about that episode that only a few people have caught is that somebody says, “Mayweather needs you.” And I looked under the sheet. Mayweather was down there. I threw in a few gay references.

David Read:
Oh, it’s funny.

John Billingsley:
For my own shits and giggles. I was like, “Oh, that made it in!” A few people caught that. A few people caught that.

David Read:
So, either during Season Two or between Season Two and Season Three, it would have been, because this is around spring, early summer 2002, you did Stargate SG-1. Tell us about getting “The Other Guys.”

John Billingsley:
Well, this is, of course, where I don’t remember, because, you know, you remember certain things in your career. You remember where you were when you got a pilot, or you remember where you were when you got a series, or an interesting movie. But for episodic television, you know, you don’t necessarily remember anything about how you got an episode of television. I didn’t audition, I know that.

David Read:
You did not?

John Billingsley:
I did not. It was an offer. And I think the gag was that they were looking for somebody who would have a Star Trek background because they thought it was funny that he would be, you know, like, you know, “I worship at the altar of Roddenberry.” And for all I know, they, you know, went through every Star Trek actor out there.

David Read:
Oh, no, no way!

John Billingsley:
It’s either Billingsley or we trash this script. I don’t remember who was casting it; I don’t remember who the casting directors were. My guess is they called my people and offered it to me, and I don’t remember whether or not I was on Enterprise at the time and I had to work it out or whether or not I had to kind of like say, “Hey, you know there’s Star Trek jokes in here; is it OK to do it?” I don’t remember any of that. I do remember that I loved the actor who played Felger.

David Read:
Patrick McKenna.

John Billingsley:
Patrick McKenna. I adored working with him. He’s every bit as charming and marvelous as you would expect him to be. And I think… I don’t know if this is possible. At this point in time, he’s as old as I am. I don’t think he cares if I out him as a dope smoker. But at some point in time in the process, I think we were staying in the same hotel. He said, “Do you want a…” “Felger, I thought you’d never ask.” Yeah. So we enjoyed… this is before the modern age of dope where it’s like you can’t… you walk down a city street and you’re stoned because…

David Read:
It’s like, oof! Yeah

John Billingsley:
Yeah. This was back in the day when it was like, [acts suspiciously]. And he’s Canadian so I, you know, as an American, if I’m flying up to Canada it’s like, “Alright, I’ll not smoke any dope this week.” But I said… I’m not a huge dope smoker anymore, but I was a little bit more then. But Patrick was like, “Well, I just drove into town, so, you know. I adore you. I adore you!” OK, so now there’s two things that are going to be talked about. One; when Dom came to my trailer in a bikini, and two; smoking dope with Patrick. This is one of those interviews where my wife is going to say, “What? You said what?”

David Read:
“It just felt natural at the time.”

John Billingsley:
Like, I know. What can I tell you? Yes, a lovely man. I would be remiss, however, in not saying to the powers that be, whoever the fuck the powers that be were, they brought back Felger, but they didn’t bring back Coombs.

David Read:
I did not not notice that, for sure. It was pretty obvious.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, it’s like, “I’m sorry, but we…”

David Read:
You’re a team.

John Billingsley:
It’s Bing and Bong, so I don’t know how you… I don’t know how you get away with that shit.

David Read:
One of my other questions for you was going to be: was there just a scheduling conflict with the next one? So as far as you remember, there wasn’t.

John Billingsley:
I never got asked.

David Read:
OK. You’re sure of that?

John Billingsley:
I’m positive. I’ve been dining out on my upset for 20-some years. It’s like, “They brought back Felger and they didn’t bring back Coombs!” I would have loved to have gone back because I loved him so much. You know, it’s so much fun to work with.

David Read:
How familiar were you with SG-1 at the time? It was just in its sixth season.

John Billingsley:
I was unfamiliar with SG-1 then. I am unfamiliar with SG-1 now. I saw one episode of SG-1 and it happened to be that one.

David Read:
You should watch it. I can send you some selects.

John Billingsley:
No, no, it’s all right. I haven’t seen a ton of Star Trek either. I like to read.

David Read:
I wouldn’t have noticed.

John Billingsley:
This is the thing that I enjoy the most. So I’m very sparing in my television. It’s ironic that I am an actor. I should have been a writer, but it’s lonely and there weren’t any girls to meet in the library as opposed to rehearsal halls.

David Read:
Oh, gosh. Symmetrical book stacking. I think that Ray Stantz would have something to say about that back there, John. So maybe you’ve got ghosts.

John Billingsley:
Oh, yeah. No, this is just one room. It’s a sickness. It beats heroin.

David Read:
What did you think of the script for “The Other Guys”? I’m assuming you rewatched it when I gave it to you. Did you enjoy it?

John Billingsley:
I watched part of it.

David Read:
OK.

John Billingsley:
I watched part of it just to refresh my memory. Well, I can say this: What I remember is, you know, Star Trek is extremely rigid and which I understand. I mean, most television shows are. You know, there’s no… you don’t fuck around.

David Read:
Yeah.

John Billingsley:
You don’t fuck with the lines. In large part, I suspect, because of Richard Dean Anderson and – you know more than I – but the sense I had, if I remember correctly, of being there was that there was a very playful and kind of loosey-goosey quality. It wasn’t improvised, but there was a willingness to entertain more sportiveness. So I don’t really remember whether or not Patrick and I made shit up, but I definitely think there were scenes, as I was watching it, where I thought that might have been a little bit on the fly.

David Read:
OK.

John Billingsley:
“Ops, ops. Why don’t you just call it operations?” I have a feeling some of that might have been smucking around.

David Read:
Well, if…

John Billingsley:
But I don’t know. I could be wrong.

David Read:
Well, if you would like…

John Billingsley:
Is this Patrick? Who is this? You can-Is this him?

David Read:
You can ask him. [Patrick McKenna joins stream].

John Billingsley:
Oh, no! Oh, no! Look at you!

John Billingsley:
Surprise, John.

John Billingsley:
Oh, I just… I outed you as a dope smoker. I just, oh my God, have mercy.

Patrick McKenna:
I haven’t been able to hear a thing. So that’s… it’s all good news though. It’s true.

John Billingsley:
Yes. I didn’t think that you were probably keeping it a secret and maybe you’re not anymore, but I just… I don’t remember anything that happened on the set, but I definitely remember going up to your room to smoke some marijuana.

Patrick McKenna:
Yes. Yes. Well, you know, Vancouver in the, in the nineties, I think we had to.

John Billingsley:
Well, I could, you know, as an American, I had to fly in without anything. So, it was like…

John Billingsley:
We’re here to help. We’re here to help.

John Billingsley:
Thank you.

David Read:
Thank you for coming back, Patrick. Yeah. How are you doing?

Patrick McKenna:
Excellent. Doing excellent. Life is good up here in Ontario. It’s Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day, gentlemen.

David Read:
Yes. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

John Billingsley:
If I’d known you were coming, I would have cleaned up. I just thought this was… look at you. You look so elegant.

Patrick McKenna:
Well, it’s Sunday and it’s Mother’s Day. I’ve got them trapped in another room.

John Billingsley:
They being wife and kids?

Patrick McKenna:
Yes. My son turns 40 this year. Which I think is older than we were at the time, I believe.

John Billingsley:
I think I was 42, maybe 41.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah? You’re younger than me. I just turned 64 two days ago.

John Billingsley:
I turn 64 on the 20th.

David Read:
Wow.

Patrick McKenna:
Hey, I didn’t realize. Yeah, absolutely.

David Read:
Patrick, any memories of working with John?

Patrick McKenna:
After the years of therapy, I blacked most of them out. But I’ll tell you what I do remember. It was hard not to laugh constantly because we were just thrown together. You know, we never knew each other. And suddenly it was called “The Other Guys.” There was this assumption of a team. And I just found it was magic that John was this incredible open energy that we both just kind of acknowledged that. And we fell into these roles pretty easily. And it seemed to really work well. People really seemed to enjoy it. And, like John said, you know, come up to my hotel room, we’d have fun. It was really easy just to hang out with them. And then work was, you know, someone else’s words, but we’re still hanging out.

John Billingsley:
I couldn’t remember whether or not I was the same. I had been on Star Trek where there was a rigid and anal about, you know, you can’t drop a syllable. They seemed, as I recall, pretty loosey-goosey about, you know, whether or not we wanted to muck around a smidge. I don’t remember how much of that we kind of invented on the fly.

Patrick McKenna:
Quite a bit. I remember quite a bit because there was things like, I think, there was a portion when they say something like, “Being hinky.” And I think you said that’s not a word. And then we got to play. All the rest of it was us just playing about that. You know, there would be, oftentimes, there were lines would infer where we would go. And then you and I would just kind of carry on from there.

John Billingsley:
That was my memory. That was my memory.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, because you’re right. I remember you were coming off Star Trek and you were mentioning that at the time, even, how strict they were there, because that was my first introduction to sci-fi anything. So, you know, you were this great shepherd into there’s a way to play the comedy and the story at the same time. And it was really nice.

John Billingsley:
I don’t know if that’s the case or not. I think I was still on Star Trek, though.

David Read:
Yep.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah. No, they were like, if you dropped a… I mean, it was sort of like they took themselves…. well, I love them all. They’re all dears. But yes, it was a little bit like doing The West Wing. It’s like, you know, “Stop. There’s a ‘the’ in there.” It’s like, “Alright. I don’t think the scansion was ruined, but alright, let’s go back.”

Patrick McKenna:
I do remember that being… you and I having to [learn] how to say Goa’uld. And you know, everybody was saying, you just, and you’d ask them how to say it. And they said, “guld.” And then next I go, “Oh no, it’s goald.” “It’s guold.” Oh my goodness. And they always had closeups on us when we would do it.

John Billingsley:
I broke my glasses in the middle of it and I think we basically said continuity be damned and we just put some scotch tape on and I wore the glasses for the rest of the… that’s something that I don’t think anybody’s ever said anything about, but…

Patrick McKenna:
Oh that’s great. Science perfect.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, yeah. I guess, you know, I think we said… I don’t remember the director, but I remember we liked him, but I think the director said something to the effect of, “Well, you know, you found some Goa’uld scotch tape and you just [inaudible]. “Good by me!”

Patrick McKenna:
Moving on.

John Billingsley:
Fine by me.

David Read:
“The Other Guys” director would have been Martin Wood, who directed much of the show. He’s a fantastic director and very easygoing.

Patrick McKenna:
That was what I found about the set, too. They were such a family, you know, that it was really easy to step in. They weren’t overwhelmed by too much. You know, it’s kind of like they knew the boundaries. And I think nobody… sorry, John?

John Billingsley:
You came back, didn’t you?

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, yeah. They said… I’m a little excited. I get the script, and they go, “You’re coming back.” I go, “Oh, great, great, great!” I say, “Where’s John?” “John couldn’t get off work.” It’s like, “What? What am I doing here? What do I do? I don’t know what to do without John.”

John Billingsley:
Well, I’ve been telling people for years they didn’t ask me back. I don’t remember if it was a scheduling thing.

David Read:
I would think it would have been because you guys were great.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, that’s what I was told. It was a scheduling thing, like, “John couldn’t get it off work.” I was like, “Oh, man!” Again, I figure, you know, you’re not going to give up Star Trek for this. But at the time, you didn’t know.

John Billingsley:
I was for a while. They were being very gracious and letting me double dip. So maybe they put the kibosh on that or I was busy in an episode. But, you know, my memory of it was that I was just like, you know, stunned later on to find out that they brought back Felger and they didn’t ask Coombs!

Patrick McKenna:
Oh, man, I didn’t realize that.

John Billingsley:
I know it’s like “Road to Bali.” It’s like, you can’t do the Road to Bali with…

Patrick McKenna:
Right? And then… the other episode was very different. It was a different one.

David Read:
Very. Yeah, absolutely. There is something about the fish-out-of-water situation that these guys are in, where SG-1 is doing its job, and then the fanboy has to come along and muck it up. But then SG-1 gets into a situation where the bottom falls out from under them. And it’s a lot like Galaxy Quest, where the fans have to pull together to get the people that they love home. I found it very similar to that.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, it was really neat that way where… I mean, the fanboy element was so easy for my character to drive forward and John being that voice of reason unreasonably all the time.

John Billingsley:
The voice of hysterical reason.

Patrick McKenna:
“You can’t do that! You can’t do that!” It was a nice little pairing that way because it’d be like, well, Felger’s character was a challenger, therefore he’s definitely going to do it.

John Billingsley:
What was the second episode? The episode that you went back and I wasn’t in.

Patrick McKenna:
I created something for the computer that screwed up the ring. And no one could get back anymore. So I had to develop a program that would fix the ring. So, I had to go into the ring with Amanda [Tapping] and fix it.

David Read:
He broke the entire Stargate network across the whole galaxy.

John Billingsley:
And Amanda… as I recall, your character had a big crush on Amanda too.

Patrick McKenna:
Yes.

John Billingsley:
Did that pay off? Did you…?

Patrick McKenna:
In a different way. They had me… I still had the crush on her [in the] second one. But the girl who played my assistant…

David Read:
Chloe.

Patrick McKenna:
Chloe. Yes. Her and I ended up having the relationship. She had a crush on me the whole time. And then in the end, I finally reciprocate.

David Read:
Yes. The actress was Jocelyne Loewen.

John Billingsley:
And she was wonderful, too.

John Billingsley:
I’m sure that they threw out Coombs and they brought in a love interest. So, Jocelyne, send me some of your residual money. I’m the one.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s right. You were the original love interest.

John Billingsley:
That’s what they should have done.

Patrick McKenna:
In the future.

John Billingsley:
That would have been foundational.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s right.

David Read:
I would love to watch a spinoff with the two of you at some point.

John Billingsley:
Oh, yeah.

David Read:
Come on. Get some of this on.

Patrick McKenna:
You know, nervously, that… when you’re a young actor and you’re having a set like we were that week, everyone starts talking about spinoffs, and your ego just starts flying, you know, because if this show has spinoffs, they can do that. Even if we go 12 episodes, I’m happy.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. I don’t remember if that came up. I don’t think I would have taken that terribly seriously.

Patrick McKenna:
No, but ego did.

John Billingsley:
Oh. OK. All right. All right.

David Read:
Patrick, this is really cool to have you pop in and say hello.

Patrick McKenna:
Thanks, guys.

David Read:
I would love to have you guys back later this year, just the two of you one-on-one. Do you think that there’s a possibility we could make that happen?

Patrick McKenna:
I wouldn’t think so, no.

John Billingsley:
I wouldn’t think so.

Patrick McKenna:
Yes. Of course!

John Billingsley:
Why don’t you have us on with Patrick’s love interest, and then could you find me a love interest?

David Read:
I think your wife would have a problem with that, don’t you think?

John Billingsley:
I want a fictitious love interest.

David Read:
That’s funny. Patrick, thank you so much for stopping in. This was really good.

Patrick McKenna:
No worries. Good to see you, John. All the best.

John Billingsley:
I have one more question for Patrick: Where do you live, Patrick?

Patrick McKenna:
I’m north of Toronto, a couple hours north of Toronto.

John Billingsley:
Alright. OK.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah. And you’re still you’re still down in LA?

John Billingsley:
I’m down in LA, but I’d love to catch up with you sometime in person if I’m ever in the hood or you’re ever in the hood. Please don’t hesitate to call.

Patrick McKenna:
Thank you, brother. That’d be great. Take care. Best to your family.

John Billingsley:
Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

David Read:
Thank you. And happy belated birthday, Patrick.

Patrick McKenna:
Oh, thank you so much.

John Billingsley:
Oh, yes. Here’s to Torians.

Patrick McKenna:
Yes, indeed. Until the 20th, my son. Take care.

John Billingsley:
We’re the humblest sign. We don’t make much of our greatness.

Patrick McKenna:
No. If you don’t believe me, ask John.

John Billingsley:
Exactly.

David Read:
You take care, sir.

Patrick McKenna:
Bye-bye.

David Read:
Yeah. May 20th is your birthday, John. So happy early birthday to you.

John Billingsley:
Thank you very much.

David Read:
I hope that tickled you. When we opened up the conversation, it was like, “Why can’t we get Patrick?” I’m like, “Well, we had him on earlier…”

John Billingsley:
I gotta say, I would not have recognized him; he looks so elegant.

David Read:
Oh yeah, his beard is gorgeous.

John Billingsley:
Oh, he’s gorgeous! I know it’s like Robertson Davies.

David Read:
The comedy, the banter… when you get to connect with someone that has good timing on screen – I imagine the stage is much better because it’s continuous – but there’s got to be something really rewarding in that, in connecting with a fellow actor who you just kind of, you get into this rhythm and this groove with. Like, you can believe that these two, you know, are friends and have this, you know, husband-and-wife banter, you know, at work. They are work spouses.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, it’s a great… I mean… I can’t remember what I was reading. I was reading something the other day, an interview with an actress who talked about, you know, chemistry. It’s like, well, I’m an actor; I act chemistry. So, there are certainly instances where in comedies or in dramas, you know, I have incredible camaraderie and sometimes it’s not real, and sometimes you have to fake it, and hopefully you’re able to pull that off. But in those instances where it’s genuine, where it’s actually… you’re really genuinely loving the person you’re working with; it is a joy to come to work. And, you know, not to say that it’s that rare, avis. I mean, I’ve been blessed, and I’m sure that’s true for Patrick too, with having a lot of people that I’ve loved to work with down the years. But there are people who are very special in my memory, and Patrick is definitely one of them. I had a great time working with him. The fucking suits, as I recall…

David Read:
Oh, the Jaffa outfit. I’ve put one on. They are heavy.

John Billingsley:
Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody offered me a whatever it’s called… what are they? Gould?

David Read:
Goa’uld. Jaffa.

John Billingsley:
He reminded me: no one pronounced it the same way. It’s like, “What are you saying? Gould?” Yeah. If somebody offered me a Goa’uld part, I’d be like, “No. No. No, no, no, no, no. Any more than I would be the guy in the suit of armor on a horse. No.”

David Read:
Oh, wow. That is something. The episode was one very much like Lower Decks for Star Trek, where it was finally time to look at a group of people who really were the below-the-line kind of IATSE people at Stargate Command who were doing all the heavy lifting after the discoveries were made. It made sense that a lot of them would be very nerdy. You know, it makes sense that those would be the kind of people who would really connect with this stuff. People who grew up watching Star Trek and worshipped at the altar of Roddenberry would be the ones going off-world and taking all this shit apart and, you know, putting it all back together again and reverse engineering it for Earth. So there is something believable in that.

John Billingsley:
It’s funny what you remember because, you know, a lot of… if you’re an actor, you don’t necessarily see a ton of stuff you’re in more than once. So years go by and people ask you questions about it, and for years I always thought he was the guy who worshiped at the altar of Roddenberry and I was the guy who made fun of it – I was so certain about that. And then a fan said, “Oh no, no, no! It was you! I can quote it.” And he quoted me the whole scene. And I was like, “I guess I’ll take your word for it.’

David Read:
Well, he’s the one who says, “We might as well be wearing red shirts.” So he’s definitely aware of the significance of the part. And it would strike me as something that Coombs would be like one of those people who would, you know, make fun of the other guy for being exactly everything that he was because part of him resents that in himself for being so nerdy, you know? I would be… I would be…

John Billingsley:
I’ll take your word for it. It sounds like you’ve done a very astute analysis.

David Read:
I would, yeah. I’d be pot calling the kettle black if I said that that never bothered me about myself. You know. Jeez. But no, you were… you, Connor, Jolene, you know, there were a lot of the Star Trek actors who got mileage off of making an appearance…

John Billingsley:
Connor had to wear rubber hands, I recall, didn’t he?

David Read:
Oh my gosh, he sure did. He was a Wraith in Atlantis. Have you guys ever talked about Stargate?

John Billingsley:
Only insofar as I got to finally go, [mocking] because…

David Read:
Right. Now it’s your turn.

John Billingsley:
I used to come in and make some fun of them because I frequently would have episodes off. And you’re probably are familiar with a little song I would sing. I’d sing, “Day off, day off. Six days off, and the checks still come.” And they got back at me by essentially saying, “Rubber Head, Rubber Head – you got to be in the makeup chair.”

John Billingsley:
So when Connor had to go to the makeup chair and was bitching about it, I was like, [mocking]

David Read:
Yours was prettier.

John Billingsley:
Mine was prettier, and I don’t know how long mine took as opposed to how long his took. Mine was two and a half hours.

David Read:
Oh, gosh.

John Billingsley:
I don’t think his quite took that long. But maybe, I don’t remember. He told me once – we were comparing notes. I think we both agreed that it would be a cold day in hell before we ever did another series regular rubberhead guy. I don’t think he was a series regular. I think he recurred, but… enough. Enough to know that it’s like, “Yeah, let this cup in front of me pass.” I just had a conversation with Doug Jones yesterday.

David Read:
Ah, yes.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, we may be doing a movie together, coming up, if they get the funding and we’d be allies, we’d be co-workers. [whispers] I get to be a human.

David Read:
I have actor friends who say he is a wonderful human being.

John Billingsley:
Oh, he is! I was making fun of him. I said, “Honey, you’ve got to go and find out whether or not you have the Guinness… because you should have the Guinness Book of World Records for giving out the most hugs.” He’s got, you know, he’s a big guy. He’s got very long arms from across the room. So, you know, you don’t even necessarily need to be able to look into his eyes to get a Doug Jones hug. And he’ll hug anybody that moves.

David Read:
And he’s got to be up there with Guinness in terms of prosthetics.

John Billingsley:
Yeah.

David Read:
Man. Oh, man! In terms of hours on set under makeup. Wow.

John Billingsley:
Yeah.

David Read:
Before we move on, aside from the sticklers for dialogue on Star Trek, to being open to discovering a more interesting way of some of the dialogue in… reinterpreting some of the dialogue a little bit in Stargate, were there any other similarities noteworthy or differences between the two productions? Both had been running for years at this point. Star Trek, certainly, several shows in.

John Billingsley:
Well, I know that Richard had a pretty cushy arrangement as I recall. He sort of had… they scheduled it based around his you know his needs, and I think he needed to or wanted to get back to the States. He flew his own plane?

David Read:
No, I think he flew first class. I’m pretty sure.

John Billingsley:
I thought he had a pilot’s license.

David Read:
He could have. I’m not sure. He went to go home to see his daughter.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, I just knew that it was sort of like, you know, the schedule was interesting because it was arranged around his kind of three-day-ish work week, as I recall. Maybe it was a four-day work week. But my memory is; it was like, you know, some days were like, “Well, this is an unusually short day.” Richard’s done. It’s Thursday afternoon and so-and-so. And then some days were unusually long days because they were trying to get everything in that wouldn’t involve Richard. So I remember the schedule was rather odd. But, again, this is 20-some years ago, and you don’t carry the same memories of an individual episode of a TV show. So I’m afraid… I’m sure you’ve experienced this, having talked to doubtless a lot of guest stars. The one-offs are not as rich in anecdote-age.

David Read:
That’s a fair point. “The Man from Earth.”

John Billingsley:
Oh, yeah.

David Read:
So, I can’t remember how I got into watching this. If no one has seen “The Man From Earth” and its sequel “Holocene,” I think the first one is…

John Billingsley:
I would pass on the sequel.

David Read:
Yeah?

John Billingsley:
I would pass on the sequel.

David Read:
It was fine.

John Billingsley:
I love Richard. I love Richard. I was like, “Richard, don’t make a sequel. Let this…” You know… it’s like you don’t make Casablanca two; I’m not comparing them, but I’m just saying, it’s like…

David Read:
No, I get it

John Billingsley:
The first one ended. It was a lovely ending. Let it be!

David Read:
It is a… you are riveted to these professors sitting around, essentially, a campfire debating this question:is our colleague sane? And it’s 90 minutes. You’re just glued to this: is this guy actually a caveman or is he full of crap?

John Billingsley:
It’s a shaggy dog story. Somebody who says I’m immortal, and, you know, we’ve kind of pulled the story out of him, and he tells the story in front of a campfire, as you say, in essence. And I won’t say anything more other than, to me, written by Jerome Bixby, who wrote the classic Twilight Zone episode, “It’s a Good Life” with Billy Mumy, and some Star Trek episodes, for those people who are familiar with old sci-fi, was really, I think, one of the great 60s sci-fi writers. The script has a little mustiness, I think. Some of the humor, to me, was a little off. But the story and the essence of what he’s wanting to talk about, the difference between religiosity and spirituality, I loved. We made it for $9. As I recall, we had the same thing for lunch every day. It’s like, “Isn’t this the same chicken we had yesterday?” “Yeah. And it’s the same chicken you’ll have tomorrow.” So don’t look for high production values. If somebody sneezed, a wall would fall down. But it was a lovely group of actors, Tony Todd and William Katz. And the guy who played the immortal probably is not familiar to most people, but did an amazing job with a shitload of dialogue.

David Read:
Yes, he sure did. Yes, David Lee Smith.

John Billingsley:
David Lee Smith. We were shooting like 14 pages a day, which for anybody who knows anything about making a movie or making TV shows is like, “What!” Not a lot of setups because it was basically a bunch of people sitting around the campfire. So, you know, you can kind of cut down a little bit on, you know, let’s move everything around. But still, in terms of what the actors have to do, 14 pages a day and a lot of it was him. With our reaction shots. Wow.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. As a… the subject matter, as a Christian, you know, going in and watching this, the Christian part of me is like, “OK. I believe what I believe.” And the inquisitive Star Trek part of me is like, “The first book was written 60 years after Christ’s death, you know, in terms of the gospels. What if you know some things are not necessarily ironclad.”

John Billingsley:
And I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t seen…

David Read:
OK, good point. Good point. I’ll shut up there. Watch it.

John Billingsley:
I’ll just say, it’s like what if a guy lived forever and said, “Yeah. I’ll tell you about my past lives”? And he lived through a lot of interesting shit. I’m not as completely taken with the movie as some other folks are, but I have to say I get a lot of very positive response to it. And for what it was made for and for what our thoughts and hopes for it were, it is done very well. And it’s very surprising to me how much resonance it’s had for folks down the years.

David Read:
Science fiction need not be flashy.

John Billingsley:
No, no.

David Read:
It just needs to make you think.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it is really a short story filmed, you know, and and I think that’s the thing for… or a novella filmed. So for people who are looking for, you know, bells and whistles… but as a piece of prose, it’s like… it’s one of those things. It’s like, “I will continue.”

David Read:
I will read on. Right, absolutely. I’ve got a few fan questions for you, if you don’t mind.

John Billingsley:
Absolutely, please.

David Read:
John Smith wants to know: John, do you have a favorite scientist?

John Billingsley:
Favorite scientist? Well, I have a favorite scientist’s book title, which is Richard Feynman’s “Why Should I Care What Anybody Thinks?” Which I think is great. And I may be garbling that title, but that is the gist of it. And I believe that is a mantra of mine. You’ll probably find the accurate title.

David Read:
“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”

John Billingsley:
What do you care what other people think?

David Read:
Interesting. All right.

John Billingsley:
Which is, to a certain extent, about, I think, his, and, you know, I think to a certain extent, what a scientist’s core belief has to be, which is: I pursued the factual. And it’s irrelevant what the… what your beliefs are – I pursue the factual. But also for somebody who – because I do rather admire him – for somebody who chooses to go into a world, to a certain extent, going and becoming an actor is not without people saying, “What the fuck?” For people who pursue something they love and are passionate about and bump into resistance, I think it is absolutely true and absolutely right to say, “To thine own self be true and do not let other people’s opinions dissuade you from pursuing what it is that you want to be and what you want to do. Why do you care what other people think about you?”

David Read:
Wow. I love it. Absolutely. Marcia [asks]: on Enterprise. Did anyone prank you by adding an unexpected animal to your collection?

John Billingsley:
No, I pranked many people. I pranked more people than anybody else. In part because I had more time on my hands to concoct. There was one instance it was in “Dear Doctor,” we stopped and picked up an alien in [a] marooned spacecraft, and there was a very brief scene on the bridge, and it was without dialogue. So over the silent action, you would hear the doctor – and the gag is the doctor’s reading, you know, dictating the letter – you would hear the doctor say something to the effect of, “We stopped and picked up a marooned alien spacecraft. And I’m amazed once again at how human beings are so willing to take these incredible risks… noble human beings, wonderful human beings, blah, blah, blah.” And the action, when we film it without dialogue, is 35 seconds. And you know, on the view screen, there’s a marooned ship. So they were going to play my dialogue so that they would be able to match the action to the length of the speech.

David Read:
Yeah, it’s a letter to Dr. Lucas.

John Billingsley:
So I substituted a speech, which I previously did. So on action, you know, and what you hear is… I was standing… normally I wasn’t on the bridge. I was standing behind the captain. And I was like, “Look at the ass on the captain. How firm it is. How ripe it is. I wonder if there’s some pretense in which I could get him down to sickbay for some kind of proctological examination.” Which did break everybody up.

David Read:
I heard the story. That’s great.

John Billingsley:
I also dressed up. This kind of bit me in the ass. Scott had a birthday party and I didn’t think he was going to invite his fucking family. So, on the set, I dressed up as a woman, and I came running in, like, you know, pretending I was his long-lost previous wife. And his family was there, including his little children.

David Read:
Oh, no!

John Billingsley:
And I was like, “How could you have left me at the altar!” And his littlest child was like, [crying].

David Read:
Oh, no!

John Billingsley:
“You brought your family, huh? I didn’t think you brought your family.” Yeah. So that was, yeah.

David Read:
The two of us in “A Night in Sickbay.” I loved it.

John Billingsley:
That was in many respects my favorite episode because I didn’t get a lot of chance to work with Scott. And I, you know, I love him. He’s such a dear, dear man. He’s got a great sense of humor. And it was more of a whimsical kind of, you know, episode. Some fans didn’t like that, which I, you know.

David Read:
You have to take risks every once in a while. You’re on Season Eighteen, for God’s sake, you know.

John Billingsley:
This was Season two. I think people were a little concerned that it sort of – I did not share this concern – but a little concerned that it made the captain somehow seem foolish or small-minded or petty. I don’t remember the particulars.

David Read:
It’s his dog.

John Billingsley:
But he’d also, like… he took umbrage that some alien species took umbrage with him and he wasn’t going to back down. Anyway, blah, blah. It wasn’t a fan favorite in many respects, but it was a favorite of mine because I got to spend a lot of time with Scott and it was the episode in which we learned the most about the Denobulan culture, including that we were polyamorous, which I tried with a raised eyebrow to suggest meant that I got it on with the guys as much as I got it on with the girls so that I could claim, as I have ever since, that I was the first bisexual Star Trek character. I don’t think that’s actually the case, but I claim it nonetheless.

David Read:
Do you think… I’m sorry for the Stargate fans who are watching, like, “They’re going to go on…?” but I have always wanted to know, John; do you think that the Denobulan… because they each have three wives and three husbands.

John Billingsley:
Three wives, and each wife has three husbands.

David Read:
And each wife has three husbands. Do you think that a fourth would be, to them, would be, “How would you even think of that! How is that even possible!” Or do you think that there’s some outliers there. Would they be as repulsed by a fourth spouse as we would by more than one? I’ve always wanted to ask you this.

John Billingsley:
I don’t know. You know, that’s a really good question. I’ve never considered it from that vantage point. What I find interesting is that, you know, to me, it apparently is the most crowded [planet]. I thought when I got the part, you’ve never seen a Denobulan before. I was the first Denobulan. So you kind of come up with a little bible for yourself. And I think, “OK, you know, there are only 10 of us left. It’s a monastic planet. You know, we only have sex once every 10,000 years. So that’s why I’ve left, you know, last Denobulan…” It turns out, it’s like, you know, we’re packed in like…

David Read:
Ten billion people on one continent. And they don’t like to be touched.

John Billingsley:
A gajillion people who don’t like to get touched. Because it’s like, you know, “I value my personal space.” But apparently once the touching happens, it’s like, “Anything goes, baby! Everybody into the rose petal bath!”

David Read:
Oh, that’s right! The rose…

John Billingsley:
Yes. And, you know, it’s like, we also… there’s an episode when my wife appears on the ship. She spends the whole episode chasing after Trip. Dr. Phlox is like,”Are you a fool? You could have had a rose petal bath with this magnificent woman.” I think a whole season could have been just basically Denobulan mating practices.

David Read:
I just always wondered what their upper limits were. I thought it would have been really interesting because we are kind of made to feel like, aren’t we like small-minded? You know, where is their limit?

John Billingsley:
I couldn’t do the math. It’s like the family tree is like, “OK, so I have three wives. Each of the wives has three husbands. Each of those husbands has three wives. Each of those wives has three husbands.” It’s like; where does my… it’s like he’s like my 90th cousin…

David Read:
It’s beyond computing.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. It’s like Christmas; you’re spending like a week and a half opening presents. Where do you draw the line?

David Read:
Absolutely, but why else be polygamous.

John Billingsley:
I can’t imagine being a Denobulan anthropologist, it’d be like…

David Read:
Oh man! Absolutely. Lockwatcher wanted to know: you’ve been on so many iconic shows. How did your role as Michael Latham come about in Season Seven of 24? And what was it like working on that series? I have not seen the show.

John Billingsley:
Manny Coto.

David Read:
Manny.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, Manny hired me a few times. Yes, I was not… I didn’t – spoiler alert – I die. So I think I was only on three or so episodes. I am kidnapped, and I am tortured into giving up some important bit of information that allows a terrorist group to be able to bring down our planes and shut up our electric grid and blah, blah. A rescue attempt is made, but by then I’ve been wired to detonate. And there’s one time I met Kiefer Sutherland; he walks in the room and I blow up. So it was like, “Thanks. Nice to meet you, Kiefer.”

David Read:
It’s pretty definitive.

John Billingsley:
Pretty definitive, yeah. I ain’t going back on that one. I’m impressed you know the name of the character, though. That would have stumped me.

David Read:
Yeah, this is Lockwatcher. He’s one of our regulars. Joey wants to know; did you ever meet – this was part before you were hired – but did you ever, in passing, meet DeForest Kelley?

John Billingsley:
No, no. I can’t remember when DeForest died.

David Read:
1996.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, yeah. I moved to LA in 1994. I had a theater career in Seattle. I had a theater company that adapted fiction for the stage. I was an acting teacher. I had done some film and TV, but I had always intended just to be a stage actor. And it was only when the little bit of film and TV work that was in Seattle dried up, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to make a living just from the stage, that I decided to move to LA. So he was gone by the time I arrived. And certainly by the time I got Star Trek.

David Read:
OK. Did you…

John Billingsley:
And I never met, actually, I never met Spock either.

David Read:
Oh, Leonard [Nemoy].

John Billingsley:
I did sit on Kirk’s lap in a Toyota, however. I was on a flight to a Seattle convention with Bill. We never met. And I was going to say hi, but I didn’t wait until we land. And we land, and there’s nobody to pick us up. So I’m kind of looking around, and I see him on the phone looking kind of upset. And I get a text and it’s the guys who are like, you know, on their way. It’s like, “Oh, sorry, we’re stuck in traffic. We’ll be there any minute.” It’s like, I’ll go tell Bill.

David Read:
Is this for a convention?

John Billingsley:
Yeah, for a convention.

David Read:
OK.

John Billingsley:
And so clearly Bill and I are going to be picked up together.

David Read:
OK.

John Billingsley:
You know, to go to this convention in Seattle. So, I start walking over to Bill and he turns and he looks at me, and he goes [waves], it’s like the Shatner wave off. It’s like, “Yeah, I’m on Star Trek, motherfucker. You can’t give me the Shatner wave off!” So I said, “No, no, no, no, no! We’re in the same car. I’m on the current iteration of Star Trek…” – this is some years back when Enterprise was still on – “We’re going to be picked up and taken to the convention hotel together, you and me together, and my wife, and apparently your daughter.” And then a Volvo or whatever it is, a Toyota shows up, and it’s the driver and two other people, so it’s like, “OK. Clown car!” Seven of us and our luggage have to get into this Toyota Camry, and “So, I’ll sit on your lap.” So I was bouncing around on Kirk’s lap. It’s like, “Oh, you ever been to Seattle before?” “Oh, where…” So he was asking me for lunch suggestions, and I said, “Oh, I should go to the Pike Place Market.” And there was a long beat, and he said, “Well, I’m meeting Leonard there. Would you like to join us?” I think at this point, it’s like, well, I’m bouncing on the man’s penis, so I figure he’s got to invite me, you know? it’s like, “Well, you want to come to lunch?” It’s like, “No, no. I don’t. This is as much delight as I intend to take for one day in you, Bill, no.” And I just said no. You’re meeting your pal for lunch. It’s like, you don’t want me… but I thought every Star Trek fan’s fantasy. It’s like, “Nah. I’ll pass. Pass.”

David Read:
Yeah, that’s a tough situation. Yeah.

John Billingsley:
That was my one chance to meet Leonard and I never met him.

David Read:
Aww.

John Billingsley:
Consequently, I’ve bumped into Bill on several other occasions. He’s repressed the memory of my giving him a boner. This isn’t a children’s show, is it?

David Read:
I’d like to keep it PG-13.

John Billingsley:
Oh, too late. Too late! Dominic in a bikini. Me delighting Bill Shatner. I should have asked you at the outset. Bonnie always says, “Did you check with them?’

David Read:
John, you’ve been a delight. And I’m going to have one final fan question for you.

John Billingsley:
OK.

David Read:
Alaskan Ballistics wants to know; what role would you want Coombs to have if we get our Stargate continuation? Which has been bandied about forever. Let’s say all the cards were on the table, all the different characters could come back. Where would Simon Coombs be now?

John Billingsley:
Well, I would like to think that it turned out that, you know, even though Felger had a love affair, that he found out later in life that actually he was gay. And that he and Coombs have been living together for a while in some kind of bachelor pad in… forgive me, I don’t know the show…

David Read:
Colorado Springs.

John Billingsley:
Colorado Springs, all right. And we’ve been called out of retirement because our combined scientific expertise is needed to do X. And X is, you know… and then whatever. After that, I don’t care. Antics ensue. I think it’s like, you know [fanfare], anything that kind of, anything that fulfills the Oscar Felix would be great.

David Read:
Gosh. And I had a comment from Yvie Cahill; Look, everyone, David’s got Coombs with him!

John Billingsley:
Foul-mouthed Coombs. I apologize if I’ve alienated any children on Mother’s Day, no less. Good heavens to Betsy!

David Read:
Before we let you go, tell me about the Hollywood Food Coalition.

John Billingsley:
Oh, thank you for asking. Yes, the other organization that is very dear to my heart and that I actually have spent a great portion of my last eight years advocating for. The Hollywood Food Coalition has been around for about 38 years. We started by providing street care, street service, primarily through the medium of a daily meal, a nightly meal, to all comers. It has evolved into an organization that, in addition to our nightly meal program, serving about 300 or so people, seven nights a week, haven’t missed a night, 38 years.

David Read:
Wow.

John Billingsley:
We also rescue about two million pounds of food a year, and we try to share it with small social service organizations to help buttress and augment their meal programs. So, what we’re trying to do is identify a niche in our ecology, in LA’s ecology, and say food is a medium of connectivity that helps build coalitions in the social service sector, so that all sorts of folks who need to work together: the folks who are providing mental health services, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, the folks who are working with street kids. All of them can kind of come together to learn about each other through the connectivity that food provides, and that’s the kind of role we try and fill.

David Read:
That is so cool.

John Billingsley:
And then the last part of the work, which is to me, in a major way, the most important and also the most challenging, is to work with other food-centric organizations that share a similar set of goals to try and address problems that are systemic in nature that can only be addressed collectively. How do you find more food to rescue? How do you refrigerate it, store it, transport it? How do you find the places where that food can go? How do you do all that work fast? Because the food that you’re picking up is already close to its end date, and you’ve got to get it to an end user pronto. It takes a village to do that work. And the natural inclination in the social service sector, unfortunately, is to silo. A social service organization operating on a relatively small budget is very precious about their funding sources. So when you go to them and say, “Hey, what if we worked together to try and find some funding sources that could, for instance, pay for a dispatcher that we would all share in? And the dispatcher’s job is to go out and find more food than any of us can find.” That is a hard thing. It’s a hard thing to have the headspace as a not-for-profit to look that far ahead and to figure out how to do that work. But to me, that’s how growth happens. There’s a wonderful woman named Frances Perkins who was Roosevelt’s Labor Secretary, who I think was probably instrumental in creating the New Deal because she was doing a lot of his work in New York during the Great Depression – trying to figure out how do we come together as a village of people to figure out systemic change, programmatic change that we all share in, and we all help to effectuate.

David Read:
I have a couple things I want to say. The thing that…

John Billingsley:
Which is a federation.

David Read:
Which is a federation. Yeah, right. A federation. Absolutely. The amount of food that we waste in this country alone is embarrassing. And secondly, I think that it’s so easy to forget how important the breaking of bread is to coming together as people, hearing one another out and not just, you know, hearing, but listening and understanding. I think it’s so important that you bring people together… it’s so cool that you’re doing this because you can bring people together this way, not only to feed and nurture them in terms of the physical body, but also their souls as well. And understanding one another.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. And the other thing to me is that, I mean, something that I’m very passionate about, and I don’t want to take up more of your time. I have no place to be.

David Read:
No, please.

John Billingsley:
One of the things that I’m very proud of about this organization, and that really means a lot to me, it means a lot to me about Star Trek, is that we’ve had thousands and thousands and thousands of people volunteer down the long arc of time. And by volunteering and by serving and cooking and helping to provide for people in need, it breaks down some of those barriers that I think have to be broken down between people who have and people who have not. There’s something about helping somebody and meeting a person, providing them with food, clothing or advice or assistance or counsel, whatever, that changes your perception about what it means to be generous in the world.

David Read:
Correct.

John Billingsley:
And I, you know… we live right now I think in an era in which there’s a sense of pugilism. It’s like, you know, “The other guy’s out to get me, out to screw me.” The language in America is very much about: “If the other side wins, it will be the end of us.”

David Read:
Yeah. “I have to take care of me at all costs.” Yeah.

John Billingsley:
And we view each other as enemies. And you know, in the end… I don’t have any solutions other than finding a way in your own backyard. I’m areligious, and I appreciate that you are not, but I have read the Bible and I do believe there’s much beauty in it. And I’ve always loved the phrase “brighten the corner where you are.” And I think that it is to me what we are asked to do. If you have privilege, which I have had, and your circumstances are appropriate, then I think finding a way to identify your volunteer bliss and giving time back to a community to help build something where you are, where your home is, is really important.

David Read:
I don’t know how you were raised, but for me…

John Billingsley:
I was raised by rabid atheists.

David Read:
No, not speaking of that. I’m talking about the food. When I was really little, we didn’t have a lot. And so to this day, you throw away food that you can eat – that’s pretty much cardinal sin number one in my household. It’s up there. It’s up there. Eat what you have been blessed with, you know, and if there is an opportunity to feed others, do it.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, so it’s hard, I mean… the pros and cons of living in a capitalist society, and I’m not a socialist, but there is a part of me that feels like a managed economy makes sense when I look at what the Scandinavian countries do. That makes sense to me. A strong social safety net that doesn’t allow people to end up living in a gutter seems to me part of a social compact that we should adhere to. I will say that the nature of a capitalist society is its root in the fact that you can create impulses – you can sell people shit. And so, you know, the overconsumption is based on an overproduction: we produce a lot of food, and it is natural enough that we’re not going to be able to consume all that we produce. It’s inherent in a capitalist structure. So I don’t think it’s a moral failing so much as it is a set of systemic challenges that have to do with an economic structure and a production capacity structure. I, you know, if I could wave a magic wand, I would move our country dramatically to the left.

David Read:
There is so much purposelessness. And there are so many places, including these two organizations that we’ve talked about today, where people can provide time and energy and discover that; yes, while you’re here, for the blip that you’re here, you do have an opportunity to give something back and discover a purpose potentially as a result.

John Billingsley:
And while, you know, I’m always obviously… The Hollywood Food Coalition, which is hofoco.org. If you’re interested in supporting us, huzzah! But I also, you know, am a great believer… we have something called “Trektivism.” I should promote two things. One; every January, to raise money for the Hollywood Food Coalition, I do something called Trek Talks, which is an eight-hour long, like, Jerry Lewis-esque telethon. We’ve raised about $115,000 a year for the last three-ish years, heavily supported by Rod Roddenberry from Star Trek, from the Roddenberry Foundation. And we also have come up with something called Trektivism, which is a podcast on a monthly basis featuring people in the Trek community who are doing cool things. Frequently fans who are just making a difference in their community. And I really think it’s just kind of asking people; any way you can engage. One thing that I started doing years ago was my wife and I; once a month, we would call our friends and say, “Hey, could you put three bags of groceries outside your front door? We’ll drive around, we’ll pick them up. Once we’ve got a carload, we’ll take them to the local food bank. If you’re around and you want to visit, we’ll have a cup of coffee too.” Get to reconnect with old friends, you’re not asking anybody to make a huge financial contribution, and a car full of groceries – it makes a big difference.

David Read:
Yeah.

John Billingsley:
And it’s something specific. And you can do the same thing with clothing or toys. If the next time you do it, you say, “OK. Hey, Charlie. This time instead of just putting out the three bags, would you want to join in and get five friends of yours that you would go around and pick up?” You metastasize, you know, which is what coalition building is to me – finding ways to metastasize the growth of activism in your community and building your peer network out.

David Read:
And finding out who your neighbors are as a result.

John Billingsley:
Exactly, exactly. And you know, although I’m not religious, you know we work with so many churches. What I will say is that, although I’m not bent that way, I marvel at how many wonderful actions are taken from faith-based groups, you know? Who are walking the walk. And I have a lot of friends of mine who are religious, spiritual. To me, it’s like, you know, the Bible says: “It’s deeds. Show me your deeds.” You know? And there are a lot of people out there who do the deeds. I have deep respect for them.

David Read:
Absolutely. If you refresh this page, everyone, you will see links to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and Hollywood Food Coalition down below, as well as a link to John’s cameo, as well. You still doing that?

John Billingsley:
I do. I do still do that. I do still do that. I try and sing songs on my cameos, so you might get an off-tune musical… Sometime I sing “Happy Birthday” in Denobulan.

David Read:
John, I have loved this time together. I would love to have you and Patrick back later this year.

John Billingsley:
My pleasure.

David Read:
I think that there’s a lot to mine in terms of talking about comedy and timing and connecting with someone. I would love to get into that more specifically and talk more about your passion projects as well.

John Billingsley:
Fabulous. I appreciate that. I look forward to that.

David Read:
Thank you, sir, for your time so much.

John Billingsley:
My pleasure. Anytime.

David Read:
Bye-bye. John Billingsley, everyone. He was Simon Coombs in Stargate SG1. I’m always so excited to be able to sit down and talk with people who have helped transform my love of entertainment and helped shape me into doing this work, which is sharing these stories with the broader Stargate community, so it means the world to me that John has sat down. I’d love to have him back. If you enjoyed this episode, and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, please click the like button. It makes a difference with YouTube and will continue to help the show grow its audience. And please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get 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. And clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few days on the GateWorld.net YouTube channel. My tremendous thanks to my moderating team -I can’t pull the show off without them: Sommer, Tracy, Jeremy, Antony, Marcia – you guys make the show possible week after week. My webmaster, Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, he’s our web developer who keeps the site up and running. I’ve got a great team of people who are continuing to archive the stories, which will, at some point, be available on DialtheGate.com so you can read through the transcripts and pull out the individual stories as well. My animators, my archivists – appreciate all of you. We have, upcoming, this coming week, we have… let me pull up the name here, Chelah Horsdahl, who played multiple parts in Stargate. She’s going to be live Friday, May 17th. Ray Xifo, who played Ohper the Nox in Stargate SG-1, live Saturday, May 18th. And then, Ben Browder, who played Cameron Mitchell on Stargate SG-1, live Sunday, May 19th. All those details are at DialtheGate. com. I appreciate all of you tuning in. Oh, one question was left for me. One question for me from Teresa MC. Question for David Read: What’s your favorite in the field of science, medical, archaeology? Would probably have to say it would be somewhere in astronomy. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. Hope you enjoyed that episode. We’ll see you on the other side.