And when I came into the show -- yeah, it was a transitional period, and as the new general coming it I felt it was time to kick ass and take names [laughs], and tighten the ship. So I was a pretty serious guy and had a short temper. As the show went on I became more relaxed as an actor in the show, and so did my character, and more of the practical joker aspect of his character came out -- it was neat, you don't often have a chance to have that kind of evolution for a character.
Stargate SG-1 could have ended any number of times -- maybe a steady hand in the cast at the top of the ninth helped keep things stable.
Well maybe, but you also had Claudia Black [(Vala)] in there, and I thought Ben Browder was a wonderful presence in the show. He had all the adventure stuff to do, and all of the physical stuff, the fights, I thought he pulled that off beautifully. And then of course there a whole new thing with Stargate Atlantis, which came out of that show. And I actually did a few of those, I think it must have been four or five.
Speaking of a steady hand, the trailer for Ark of Truth is very funny because it has all these action scenes and shouting and mayhem, and then it keeps cutting back to you in reaction shot, and each time you're standing there looking calm and unflappable.
[laughs] That's funny. I had two people in my personal life who I though of when I played Landry. One of them was my father, who has been gone ten years now, but he was certainly a leader in his profession. I saw many times that calm aspect under fire when things got tight, he would be steady. And the other was my college basketball coach, John Wooden at UCLA, one of the best collegiate coaches ever to play the game -- he won 10 out of 12 national championships. His whole composure was just very even-tempered, he never raised his voice, and he said wonderful things like, "Make every day your masterpiece" and "Be quick, but don't hurry," that was another great one. And so I thought of both those gentlemen a lot when I was doing Landry. They were very impressive to me.
According to legend your dad was up for the role of Captain Kirk, so you might have had a much earlier immersion in sci-fi.
And he also did Battlestar Galactica [as Commander Cain in episodes 1x11-12, "The Living Legend" (1978)]. And he did one of the first sci-fi movies ever made, called Rocketship X-M [(1950)], about guys going to the moon in a spaceship, and they run into moon monsters and things [laughs].
So what was it like to come back and make Ark of Truth?
I was really pleased that they -- at that point we knew that the series had been canceled, so to be able to come back and do some more was exciting. Because I felt that the fans were sort of owed that. So to come back and search for that ancient artifact and defeat the Ori knowing that the Ori are going to launch their final assault on Earth, that was great. And I think like most of them it was very well written.
Was this in the plans during season 10? Clearly some resolution to the Ori story was needed.
I'm not sure about that, actually. That's a good question, probably more for Brad and Rob than for me. I was happy to do it. I really enjoy working with those guys, it's a lot of fun.
The production values are ramped up from the actual series. Did it feel more like a feature than an episode?
Yeah. I love the look of it. I was pretty much relegated to the sets and the SGC. The guys went up to the Arctic and got into the underground passages there, that was pretty wild, but I didn't get involved in that.
The Ori are an unnerving threat for the SG-1 team. What is it about the Ori that makes them such a dangerous enemy?
They're sold on themselves, and they feel that their way is the only way. That's always a kind of a scary proposition, for a culture to send that message out. I think that in terms of the real world, what matters is cultures respecting one another and trying to relate to one another. The most dangerous cultures are the ones that aren't accepting of their fellow human beings. And I guess that's where the Ori fit in.
The great thing about Stargate is that it's very today. The Asgard tell us we're the Fifth Race and pass the baton to us, and you get the sense even at the SGC there's nervousness that humanity isn't ready.
Well, and I think it's not just Stargate, I think the whole milieu of science fiction is, the fun thing about is you can take on really heavy, modern problems and discussions and have fun with them, you don't have to be so serious as you would if you were using the names and characters of people and cultures living today.
And I think also what really stands out with Stargate is they have such a great sense of humor about it. Richard Dean was one of the guys who had the most hand in that, and I tried to bring as much of that in my own way as I could to Landry. Because I think that's what the fans enjoy about it.
