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The Man
from Atlantis
“This is going to sound so cheesy,” admits David Hewlett, on a brief break
during location shooting on the first season of Stargate Atlantis, “but when
I did the first episode I ever did of SG-1, I felt like I had come home”.
Unlike the rest of the Stargate Atlantis cast, Hewlett had the opportunity
to begin developing the infuriating Dr Rodney McKay long
before the Stargate
spin-off show was green-lit by the US Sci-Fi Channel. He actually first
played McKay in Stargate SG-1s fifth season episode 48 Hours and
later reprised the role in season 6’s two-part premiere, Redemption.
Despite his character emerging as a fan favourite, Hewlett wasn’t initially
a front-runner when the producers of Stargate Atlantis began casting the
series.
“I played McKay on SG-1 a few times,
just as a guest star, which was great fun,” he says. “I was always surprised
when they called
me back – there was nothing planned about it.
It was supposed to be one episode and it ended up being three. Then I heard
about Atlantis, and through a couple of people learned that they
would have loved to have me on it, but were going a different way. So I
though ‘Oh, great. Maybe McKay can show up in
the Pegasus galaxy a couple of times.’”
As Atlantis neared the start of filming,
it became increasingly clear that the role was harder to fill than the
show’s producers had
expected, and all of a sudden Hewlett was
facing being cast as a series regular – though not as McKay.
“I got this last minute call saying, ‘look,
they’re having trouble finding someone for this part. Can you come in and
read for it?’”, he
recalls. “It wasn’t for McKay, it was another
character. In fact his name was Dr Ingram and he was an African-American
scientist. It
was a completely different character. They had
similarities – he was the resident expert on Ancient technology and the
astrophysicist,
but he wasn’t McKay. So obviously, I went a
different way with it. I got the Ingram role and then the day I was leaving
for the set I
discovered I was actually playing McKay!”
Lost in Space
As an actor whose credits encompass numerous
sci-fi projects, including the acclaimed movie Cube, it seems
somewhat
inevitable that Hewlett would find himself
playing a regular role on a genre show.
“I
just love sci-fi,” he explains with the enthusiasm of a true aficionado. “I
was born in Surrey, England and was raised on Dr Who,
That’s what I watched
every night. I was the little blond kid hiding behind the sofa watching Jon Pertwee!
It took me a long time to
realise that there weren’t really Time Lords,
but you could pretend to be them and actually get paid for it. So sci-fi is
my genre.
“For me, there was never any question of
wanting to do this show. And it’s been amazing. The time, energy and money
they’ve
spent on this thing is incredible – there’s
something about walking on set and seeing this 30-foot tall Stargate and
this massive
Frank Lloyd Wright-style set. It’s just perfect
for people like me. I get a kick out of it!”
Hewlett has also been getting a kick out of
playing McKay with a far wider range than he was ever able to as a guest
star on Stargate
SG-1. As viewers can see from early
episodes of the fist season, the character hasn’t changed too much from the
days in which he
called Major Carter a ‘dumb blond’. But this
time, as a member of the team who leave Earth to explore the distant Pegasus
Galaxy,
McKay has a far wider arena to exert his
expertise in – and the good doctor has a thing or two to learn as well.
“I was very surprised when someone came up and
handed me a machine gun the other day,” admits Hewlett with a chuckle. “I’m
getting to mix things up a bit, which is nice.”
One
of the aspects which Hewlett has found refreshing about Stargate Atlantis is
the tone of the shows storylines. “From the pilot
episode [Rising] on, the thing that I’ve
really noticed and I was quite surprised by it, is that the episodes are
really quite dark.” He notes. “We do some very questionable things. SG-1 is
a military operation, so there are rules and regulations and checks and
balances as to how they approach things. We don’t have the benefit of that.
Because this is a research trip, with the military obviously a big part of that, we make some huge political mistakes and
we make a lot of enemies because of that. We’re out here floundering around
in a galaxy we know nothing about with technology we
know nothing about.”
“I’ve always liked the darker aspects of the
sci-fi genre. Part of science fiction to me is the ability to explore both
the positive and the negative sides of the future. What I like about this is
there are enough loose ends to debate about. There’s nothing worse that pat,
black and white answers in sci-fi, because
technology invariably doesn’t solve the problem for people.”
Giving an example of the darker storylines that
Atlantis tells during the
early parts of its first season, Hewlett highlights Underground
as a particularly poignant adventure. “Speaking
of making mistakes, this is an episode about us really nudging a race into
the atomic
age, simply so that we can get food. If you
looked not too far into the future, you would see that perhaps that not a
good idea. And as it turns out, its not! But it’s all about survival and I
think that’s quite a topical theme. We are forced to use technology we don’t
understand and there are repercussions to making those choices. So that’s
the stuff I’m loving.”
Judging by the shows ratings in the US,
Atlantis’ decision to explore ‘the dark side’ of modern day humans being
stranded in an alien universe seems to be paying off. The spin-off show has
taken its place alongside Stargate SG-1 as one of the US Sci-Fi
Channels
top 10 shows, and a long run looks very likely
indeed.
“It’s fantastic,” says Hewlett. “I initially lived in fear of the cast
because you’re signing on to a show for a long time and it only takes a
couple of morons and it’s a nightmare! But everyone is different enough that
there are great little jabbings back and forth. Everyone’s
got different perspectives on things, and yet
we all get along and it’s fantastic. We tease each other mercilessly – and
I’m the eldest of
five younger sisters, so I’m all about the
teasing, and they all give it right back. It really is a fun set.”
McKay Mania
Hewlett’s propensity for finding the fun in any situation has not only led
to star Joe Flanigan singing his praises as the joker of the cast, but has
helped his character become a quick favourite with Stargate Atlantis
viewers. Hewlett attributes McKay’s appeal to many
character quirks and the new situations that
the character is constantly finding himself in.
“Deep down, McKay is an honourable person,” he
notes. “But that doesn’t stop him from complaining and it certainly doesn’t
help his arrogance! And he’s not built for action. McKay was not designed to
be running around, he was designed to be studying stuff in a
very safe laboratory. All of a sudden, he’s got
to put his money where his mouth is, and I think that softens a character.
He is reliant on other people in a big way.”
McKay’s new found vulnerability has been explored a lot in
Atlantis’ first
season, and Hewlett has loved it. He points to the shows
mid-season
two-parter The Storm and The Eye as an obvious highlight, as
it’s not only a big action episode for the whole cast but
also places McKay in another situation to which
he’s unaccustomed.
“It’s fun from my aspect because I get to play
a coward and a hero at different times,” he explains. “I love seeing where
McKay will
cave in and where he’ll actually make a stand.
He comes through in the end, but boy he doesn’t make any friends along the
way!”
Clearly David Hewlett is having a lot of fun on Stargate Atlantis. He seems
to have found his perfect working environment.
”There have been so many things that I’ve
worked on where it’s just been so obvious that it’s just been a matter of
‘OK, whatever.
Let’s just get through the day,” he admits.
“The thing that I loved about Stargate SG-1 and that I love about
Atlantis, is that people love being on the show, and they love working
on it. The whole crew is behind it - and there’s nothing more surprising
than when there’s
some huge guy standing behind a lamp holding
your lines up for you! You know you’re getting through when people you
wouldn’t think care at all about the dynamics of the character are throwing
back lines to help you.”
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