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McKay and Mr Hewlett: Interview with Atlantis Star David Hewlett
Submitted by Carole Gordon on November 6, 2006
'Stargate: Atlantis' has just been given the green light for its fourth
season. For David Hewlett, who plays citrus-phobic astrophysicist Rodney
McKay, the renewal was bittersweet, coming as it did at the same time as the
news of 'Stargate: SG-1's' cancellation. Not only
that, but Hewlett was on the SG-1 set for the last day of shooting. In
this interview, he talks to Carole Gordon about the two shows,
Rodney 'Everyman' McKay, his new movie 'A Dog's Breakfast' - and his love
of Doctor Who ...
By a fluke of scheduling, David Hewlett was on the 'Stargate SG-1'
set finishing off an episode he had started filming some time
before - on
the very last day of shooting the show. The atmosphere on set that day was,
he says, amazing.
"I've never felt anything like it. Everyone was very sad, so there was this
sadness about it, but at the same time these guys were
gonna be cancelled
like a hundred times. They've been through this so many times, so there was
a weird sense of 'Ah, we're cancelled again. Whatever!'"
Since, in science fiction, anything can happen, maybe 'Stargate SG-1'
hasn't gone forever. Perhaps the show could emulate its popular
archaeologist and "do a Daniel Jackson" by returning from almost certain
death?
Hewlett laughs. "Exactly! Maybe SG-1 right now has just really ascended to
the level of TV movie! Actually, it's amazing to me that this
show isn't
going again, especially looking at it from a ratings standpoint. The ratings
are great, the stories are still working really well
and everyone still
really likes them. It's comparable in success to the new shows that are out
there. 'Battlestar' just opened the other
day and it's got ratings
that are similar to SG-1 - and SG-1 is ten years in."
There may even be benefits in continuing 'Stargate SG-1' in the TV
movie format, Hewlett feels.
"I think it may be advantageous because now they get a little bit more money
to flesh out the episodes into a two-hour arc, which
could be really cool.
They've got 'Cooperick' directing the first one - Robert Cooper, who I love
to tease about his Kubrik-like directing!"
The final day's shooting on 'SG-1' was a brutally long 10am to 3am
the following morning. But, by industry standards, Hewlett says
that both 'SG-1'
and 'Atlantis' generally work a fairly easy 9am to 5pm day - which
usually means 6am until 8pm! He agrees though that cast and crew earn their
months off between filming each season.
"Oh god yeah!" he says with a laugh. "You know, I've absolutely no guilt. My
Anglo-Saxon guilt doesn't work, given the nine months or whatever we've just
done. It's incredibly hard work; it's so much fun, but at the same time, you
don't realise quite how draining it is
until all of a sudden you go, 'Oh my
god, I can sleep in past 6am!'"
Rodney McKay first appears in the 'Stargate SG-1' episode '48
Hours' when he hinders the team's attempts to rescue Teal'c, who is
trapped in the Stargate's memory buffer. After Teal'c is saved, McKay is
reassigned to Russia before being brought back to the SGC
when the Goa'uld
Anubis turns the Stargate itself into a bomb in the Season 6 opening two-parter
'Redemption'. When the Atlantis
outpost is later discovered in the
Pegasus Galaxy, McKay joins the pioneering team who set off on what could be
a one-way trip. But McKay nearly didn't go. As Hewlett relates, he was
actually called in to read for a different role on the spin-off show.
"Originally the character description was an African-American
astrophysicist. It seems that they slightly changed their approach with it,
in that they hired the whitest man alive! What happened was that, in the
casting process, they were looking for characters, they weren't looking for
types, if that makes sense. And so, all of a sudden, they threw what they
were originally thinking out the window and they just started looking for
people who were going to work well with the new environment."
In that case, how did they hit on using the antagonistic McKay?
"I think the thing with McKay is that he wouldn't work so well in the
environment - that's why they went with McKay," Hewlett says. "But
originally I was cast as a character called Ingram; I was not going to play
McKay. He was going to be this McKay-like character but not exactly the same
character."
Given how much the fans like the McKay character, Hewlett agrees that it
would have been difficult for him to have been accepted on
the spin-off show
in a different but similar role. Fortunately the producers saw the benefit
in keeping the character. But did McKay
change between coming in as an
occasional irritant to the SG-1 team, and becoming a major player at the
Atlantis base? Hewlett
agrees that McKay's purpose in the story might be
different, but not his essential character.
"When you come into a thing as a guest star as I did on 'SG-1',
you've got a very different role than when you are a regular," he explains.
"That sounds obvious, but the thing that I found was that, as a guest star,
you come in, you're allowed to screw things up and then let the leads solve
it. Your job is to cause trouble. So my character was almost entirely based
on how he can effectively piss everybody off. So when they brought McKay
back for 'Atlantis', it's like - what do you do? Because you want to
be true to that character, he's a jerk that
no-one likes; at the same time
he has to be a lead in the show, so he can't be completely hated all the
time. What they've done, I think, very intelligently, is they haven't made
him nicer, they've just explained why he's the way he is."
Hewlett says that Season 3 explores why McKay is the way he is, and deals
with his family and his past, with stories that are both funny and poignant.
Does this reflect the contradictions inherent in the McKay character? His
fear, courage, heroism, cowardice?
"To me, he's Everyman," Hewlett says firmly. "The reason why people like to
hate him is that I think there's a little McKay in everybody.
The key with
the acting side of stuff is finding the bits of yourself that work for the
character, otherwise you're pretending all the time
and that can be sort of
tiring to watch. There are times in everyone's life when they are heroic,
they make selfless choices and they look out for others. And there's also a
vast majority of people and times in people's lives when they look out for
themselves. I would love to be the hero all the time, but I'm not. I'm just
as much of a coward as anyone else. What's nice about McKay is that it's not
usually dealt with on television, you don't see a lot of those kind of
characters. We are seeing more of them now, I guess. 'House' is a
good example. Hugh Laurie is doing a fantastic job with that, where you've
got an incredibly unlikable character that you love to hate."
Does McKay realise he's a hero?
"No," Hewlett says. "I think the heroics surprise him more than anyone else.
I think he thinks of himself as practical. All of his decisions are based on
'What's the smartest thing to do in this situation?' Generally he panics, so
the intelligence doesn't come through so much, but in his panic, he panics
into heroics, or he panics into cowardice. In a strange way, when he's not
in danger, he's a full-on coward; when he is in danger he actually seems to
rise to the occasion."
There's also a certain unknown quantity with McKay - you never really know
what he's going to do or how he's going to react.
"I wouldn't be surprised if McKay suddenly goes off and helps the Wraith!"
Hewlett says with a laugh. "If he thinks there's some logical reason why
this is a better solution, then I think he would do it. I wouldn't put it
past him."
But as much as Hewlett is excited about Season 3, it has proved to be a
tough workload.
"We'd have a seven day shoot - I'm scheduled for eight of them because I'll
go and do second unit as well as the seven days of shooting. So it's been
insane for me. But you know, what can you say? When I came in I expected to
come in and stand in front of a computer and explain a few things and then
go away for the next four or five days!"
As well as the long hours, at various times Hewlett has had the challenge of
working soaking wet in episodes such as 'The Storm' and 'Grace
Under Pressure'. But it's not the damp that gets to him.
"That Puddlejumper is one of my most hated sets ever," he says with
vehemence. "Because it's kind of like acting in a box. It's not even kind of
like acting in a box - it is in fact acting in a large wooden box. So
there's nowhere to light, there's nowhere to put the cameras.
It becomes so
much about the technical side of things and yet whenever I'm in that stupid
thing, I'm always supposed to be acting my
little heart out. At the time you
hate it; later you look back and you go 'Ah!' when it works - they did such
a great job with Grace under Pressure."
The Puddlejumper might not be Hewlett's favourite place to work, but get him
soggy and he's in his element.
"The stuff in the water was so much fun. I loved it! I say, get McKay on 'Aquaman'
or something! To be in a pool all the time to me is heaven. It was the
perfect temperature. I didn't get out of the pool while we were shooting.
Instead of going back to the trailer, I just
swam round the whole time. I
was exhausted by the end of the day, but you're in a giant University of
British Columbia wave tank, about the coolest, the best swimming pool you
could have."
After a few hours in the water, wasn't he a bit . . . well, prune-like?
"Yeah," Hewlett agrees. "I did get very wrinkly, it's true. And I had to
keep reminding the crew that the bathrooms were just down the hall!"
How would Hewlett like to see McKay develop in Season 4?
"I would like to see a few mute episodes perhaps where he can only wave his
arms around or maybe ones where he lies in bed -
but then you're talking to
someone at the end of the season. At the beginning of the season I'll be
chomping at the bit to do things but
at the end of it, I'm like 'Oh for
god's sake, why doesn't someone else explain this?'"
There's always the potential for the character to be in a coma for an
episode, perhaps.
Hewlett agrees, but is wary. "You've got to be careful with the coma things
because you know, the next thing you know, you're not back!"
Talking of people not coming back, what can he say about the rumours
flooding the internet that Carson Beckett is killed during the second half
of Season 3? There's silence at the other end of the phone line before he
neither confirms nor denies.
"Well, that's not been confirmed yet, has it?" Hewlett says enigmatically.
"It's amazing how fast that little piece of, shall we say,
information or
misinformation has been propagated. All I can say about that is that I think
people will be incredibly surprised by what happens. And I mean that both in
a good and a bad way. So you can take that as you wish! But either way,
people who think they've
got it right, you know, I think they'll be very
interested to see what happens and its repercussions on season 4!"
Along with the possibility of 'Stargate SG-1' characters appearing in
'Atlantis', there has also been some crossover between the actors and
Hewlett's independent movie project, 'A Dog's Breakfast'.
"I've never done an episode with Teal'c," Hewlett says. "I had to cast Chris
Judge in my own movie in order to work with the damn guy. Because he's
always stuck in a Stargate, or something!"
"I don't know why I got such a giggle out of this. We were trying to cast
this character who keeps getting stood up on dates and so we thought about
all these different types of people, these sad little people, who we could
cast in the role and then Jane, my girlfriend,
who's also an old friend of
Chris said, 'What about Chris?' I was like, 'Ah, you've got to be kidding
me, come on. Like anyone's going to believe that guy can't get a date!' And
then we started laughing about it and we asked him to see if he'd do it and
he was just amazing.
He is so funny, like too funny. And too charming,
because my sister was all over him. It was really just embarrassing for all
of us."
'A Dog's Breakfast' was written by Hewlett, who also starred in and
directed the movie, which tells the story of Patrick, who takes a
dislike to
sister Marilyn's fiancé and decides that the sci-fi soap-star has just got
to go. How difficult was it to direct as well as act?
"How egotistical is that, is the thing!" Hewlett laughs. "I fought tooth and
nail not to be in the movie to start, because I just don't like
actors who
put themselves in movies. If you want to direct, direct; if you want to act,
act. But don't point the camera at yourself and call it a movie."
In the end though, lack of funding dictated the issue. Although many of the
people who worked on the movie were volunteers, money
was still needed for
important things such as catering.
"The beautiful thing about being the writer, director and actor in your
movie is that that's three lunches, right there. I probably ate three
lunches anyway but the idea was to save some money. I think, given a choice,
I would certainly not have as much of a role from the
acting standpoint
again because it is insane."
Insane it may be, but the experience hasn't put Hewlett off directing in the
future.
"Directing to me, it's fantastic; it is just fantastic because you get to
see the whole process of a film. I just can't wait to do it again!"
The original idea had been just to shoot the movie on video at his house in
the US, but visa restrictions meant that they couldn't bring
any of their
cast and crew in to film. So they found a location in Vancouver, with Jane Loughman (producer) persuading John Lenic (a producer on 'Stargate SG-1') to
get involved. Lenic showed up with truck-loads of equipment and suddenly
Hewlett found himself
shooting a "real" movie. And there were more surprises
to come, not least Chris Judge's comic abilities.
"Not to go on and on about it," Hewlett says, "but he has like three scenes
in this movie and I wrote the second scene because in the read-throughs he
was just so funny. So I ended up writing a whole extra scene because he's
just hilarious. Then you've got Paul
McGillian - you can't lose with Paul.
Then poor Kate, who does nothing but play my sister!"
Kate Hewlett appears in the Season 3 'Stargate: Atlantis' episode 'McKay
and Mrs Miller' as Rodney's sister, Jeannie. In 'A Dog's Breakfast',
Kate again plays the sister, Marilyn, to Hewlett's character, Patrick, the
two characters sharing a combative sibling
relationship. Is that reflective
of how they get on in real-life?
"Yes. Kate's brutal," Hewlett confirms with a laugh. "Kate is far too smart
for her own good and she's got a very healthy career of her own. She's just
done a television series up in Toronto and she's writing and producing stuff
out of Toronto that the critics are loving. The wretched woman is a genius
unto herself. She's nine years younger than me, so I kind of made her life
misery. I tend to tease
somewhat, my cast-mates and my family and friends,
so she bore the brunt of most of that but she's learned to give it back
pretty good. She does a lot of slapping of me in the forehead that is
something which is just entirely Kate. I'll suddenly turn around to have the sweaty palm of Kate embedded in my forehead."
The movie is currently in the distribution stage, with Hewlett eager to
self-distribute, a process that is far from easy. He is also
negotiating DVD
release.
"What I'm proposing to people that we're talking to is that they look after
the DVD side of stuff internationally and deal with all that
stuff and we'll
get the film out there in almost like a book tour."
Maybe he could go the digital download route, since that seems to be all the
rage at the moment? While Hewlett thinks this is a
perfect solution, there
are still logistical issues.
"The only fear is you don't want to put it on the web and then find there
are other venues there that will suffer because of it. Because I'm such a
nerd, I love the idea of maybe even doing a distribution by resolution. You
have a low-res version for the web to give people
an idea of what they're
getting into and then they can buy DVDs or whatever."
Hewlett is also a convert to the HD (High Definition) format used to shoot 'A
Dog's Breakfast'.
"We did a cast and crew screening which was projected to the size of a
house. It's just amazing; the HD quality is unbelievable. It's beautiful,"
he says with enthusiasm. "I'm completely converted to HD. I mean, film looks
gorgeous, but HD is like the most fantastic.
It's so quickly catching up
with film and it just allows this freedom. We could not have made this film
without HD, no way."
Promotion for the movie is using the viral route, with Hewlett having set up
a website, blog and discussion forum. He decided to open
a blog, he says,
partly because of the amount of mail he has been receiving.
"I feel so guilty, because - I generally operate on guilt - I get so much
mail, I just don't have time to get to it all. You know, I do my best
but I
really wanted people to know how much I appreciate that they're watching and
I want to answer their questions and I want to include them in this stuff,
even for entirely selfish reasons. The movie just wouldn't get into the
rooms of the people that we're getting into if it wasn't for the response
we're getting from the people on-line."
What about the discussion forum? Hewlett is no newcomer to internet forums,
but he still finds the experience enlightening.
"The forum is fascinating to me. Like there's whole studies you could do on
that! It can be quite amusing; it can be quite scary. I had no idea there
were so many rules and terms I've never heard of. Some of it gets a bit
much. I did a website for 'Cube' when it first came
out. At the time,
they weren't doing a lot of websites for movies at that point, certainly not
for independent films. And we put a forum up
on 'Cube', so I sort of
knew what to expect because that was insane. Eventually with 'Cube'
we had to shut it down because it just
became stupid. Got the odd couple of
idiots who wouldn't stop posting. But this is really quite interesting. I
find it fascinating."
As well as being something of a technogeek, Hewlett is also known to be a
big 'Doctor Who' fan. But which Doctor is his favourite?
"Oh, I would have to go with Tom Baker," he says after a pause. "Just
because that's what I grew up with. Jon Pertwee started it, so
that's why I
hesitated whether it was Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker. Jon Pertwee just had a
certain class to him that Tom Baker didn't.
Tom Baker had more of the
clownish aspect to him, but growing up it was Tom Baker."
At the time, his family - emigrés from England - would make an annual visit
back home to visit the grandparents, where Hewlett
spent the summer catching
up with 'Doctor Who'. He's also caught up with the latest
regeneration of the show. But some things,
he feels, should be left alone in
all their wobbly quaintness.
"[In the new 'Doctor Who'] there were things I loved; there were
things I hated. For me, you can't recreate a show that you grew up on.
And I
think what was smart was they didn't try to do that, they've gone in
different directions. There was stuff I loved and there was stuff,
I was
like, 'What do you mean, Daleks are flying? You can't fly a Dalek!' It's
funny and I feel like such an old man saying this, but I was like, 'No
there's people in there, you have to push them!'"
© Carole Gordon 2006
www.eclipsemagazine.com
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