An Interview with Michael Shanks

How did you get involved with Stargate? Oh boy, I auditioned when I just finished theater school. I did two years at a Shakespeare festival in Ontario, Stratford. I was sleeping on a friend's couch, looking for the next job, contemplating moving to Toronto full time, and then an audition came up for the show and after that, the rest is history.

Did you think it'd be this loved, so many years later? No, no. Here we are, you know, almost 30 years later, and to still be talking about it, you know, at the time, it was just supposed to be a job. Yay, we got a job. We were talking last week about how we never expected it to get this big. We just expected it to be a gig that we were doing, and then it kept going on, and I'm like, oh, this is going on for a long time. All of a sudden, you're 10 seasons in, and there's a spinoff show and all this other stuff, and the fact that it's a franchise. It's quite an honor, to still be talking about it. It is strange. As, uh, we get older and still, you know, look at our faces on that show, and that's what you're remembered for, but it's part of life.

How many times did Daniel die on the show? Oh, I have no idea. If somebody somewhere’s got a tally, uh, I don't know because there were certain shows where he died offscreen so many times as well. Like Avatar where he dies in the AI experience kind of thing multiple times. So I don't know. I have a running tally, but there was a lot.

Did you have a favorite gag on the show? Oh, um, uh, nothing per se. Like I, you know, they had the Jell-O thing and Rick and I always tried to find stuff in it, so I always loved working with him and we just did the Jack Daniel thing whenever we could. We had developed a way of speaking to each other in character that was kind of their own language, like Jack Daniel, is that you? Are you good? . Like stuff like that is kind of creative. So all that kind of stuff I really enjoyed.

How much of the mythology did you have to learn? Or was it the script? Well, the thing about our mythology is it was loosely based on real mythology, and then we corrupted it. So if you learned the proper mythology, you would probably be screwed because it never stuck to the actual history/mythology. But when I was writing for the show, it was a great thing to dive into the mythology to sort of look for interesting things to develop a story for.

If you go back and finish any storyline or any character art, is there anything that you would do? Oh boy. Yes. I mean, I don't think I just wanted to revisit the character. You know,there were discussions, and, of course, with the Amazon thing that happened,and that the idea of going back to revisit that universe with that character was so appealing to me. Just because of the time removed. to see what had happened, you rarely get a chance to do that, um, with anything, and to see it from a completely different point of view, you know, here we are, it would be almost 20 years later, since the show wrapped up. It is 20 years since the show wrapped up, to be able to revisit that character would have been a privilege and a lot of fun.

Do you have a favorite guest star? Well, she turned into a regular on the show. It was Claudia Black. We had so much fun working together that they wrote her in as a series regular. . So, um, you know, she was, she was my favorite guest star who turned into her regular. So yeah, I guess we enjoyed our time.

Do you think Stargate SG1 still holds up? Strangely enough, it does. Uh, I'm doing, uh, starting a rewatch podcast in August, and I stepped back and started watching the show. I mean, some of it, some of the fashion, like if you want to call it that, because it's a sci-fi show, we're wearing military fatigues and, you know, extreme sci-fi wardrobe. But like, you know, hair and whatnot. And we were still shoot we were shooting on film at the time. We were shooting on, um, on, uh, I think 35 mil film before the age of digital. So when you watch it, it's kind of got a grainy feel that is very different from modern television. So there's that. But strangely enough, the visuals hold up largely. I mean, there's some there's some questionable writing, but we knew it was questionable at the time in terms of, like, the feminist arguments and kind of things like that that didn't age well. But the actual overall look of the show has seemingly aged really well. I'm surprised.

Did you have any idea how important the show would become to women? I don't know. I know that we have a large women fan base. I attributed that to MacGyver bringing his audience. But I know that, especially at the time, there weren't a lot of strong, capable women. She was one of the characters who kind of, you know, stepped into that, “I'm not afraid to take on the male role.” character, and we've seen a lot since then, you know, they're standing on characters like Carter's back, the women that are leading shows now, and with the attitude. So, yeah, I guess I hadn't really put too much thought into it, but I just sort of taken it for granted, but yeah, I do kind of have a sense of how important it's been.

What are some of your funniest memories on set? Oh boy. Um, it's kind of always, it's, I always get to ask that question and it's kind of hard to sort of pin it down to a couple. I mean, I always enjoyed it on a personal level. I enjoy learning a skill, or getting paid to do fun things. Like when I got to take this old circa 1967, uh, Jeep and drive around these sand dunes all day and you had to, like, gun it through the sand dunes. I'm getting paid to do this. This is fantastic. And we would ride horses, uh, in the first season, and, you know, of course, all the little child in me, loves all the fake guns that we got to play with. It was a lot of fun. So there's all those elements in terms of making the show. But I think it was the people I remember the most. We had a great group of people that obviously we still travel together and keep in touch. Even the crew of that show became quite tight. It was a very welcoming atmosphere for new people. It was a very trusting group. We always supported everybody that came onto the show, and gave that energy out, and got it back in return. So I always remember the people.