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Close Up: David Hewlett
June 3, 2008
Story by Sharon Gosling
David Hewlett, the actor behind the ever-irritating and indeed, irritated,
Dr. Rodney McKay, is enjoying his first period of ‘down time’ since filming
on Stargate Atlantis’ fifth season began. According to Hewlett, McKay
is having quite a time of it this year – and he’s happy to tell us all about
it.
“It’s been amazing,” he says, with obvious enthusiasm. “I’ve got my first
break; there’s an episode, ‘Whispers’, where I just have a couple of
cute little scenes with the lovely and talented Paul McGillion, so I’ve
actually had a few days off. But it’s been amazing. The episode I’m most
excited about so far is called ‘The Shrine,’ which we’ve just
finished shooting. It’s Brad Wright’s triumphant return to writing scripts
for Atlantis, and it’s just great. It’s a really meaty McKay episode,
but the great thing about Brad is that he may write episodes that are kind
of McKay-centred, but he’s so good at bringing in all the other characters
as well. So it’s just a great ensemble piece where I get to do some acting,”
he laughs. “I love running around shooting things and techno babble and all,
but it’s just nice to go, ‘Wow, I actually have to act…’ I can’t just have
fun I actually have to do some serious work!”
Though ‘The Shrine,’ (which sees McKay have to deal with losing the
genius mental capacity that has made him so invaluable to Atlantis) is a
particular highlight so far, there have already been plenty of other
adventures to keep Hewlett occupied. “I guess upstairs has something to
prove,” he says with a laugh. “They’re knocking them out of the park this
year, there’s non-stop stuff going on.”
Of course, the season opens with the resolution of the cliff hanger that saw
the team trapped in a collapsed building, and getting out of that was never
going to be a piece of cake, especially for McKay.
“It was one of those ones where, when we first walked in I was like, ‘How
the hell are they going to pull this off?’ They were trying to build this
destroyed tower in a studio. Then we got in there and started looking at it,
and it’s unbelievable. We had little flames flickering in the foreground and
these giant columns lying there – it was pretty neat. That was kind of fun,”
Hewlett reports, “it was me and Kavan [Smith] stuck in a little air pocket,
trying to get ourselves out.” The thought of McKay being stuck in a confined
space with anyone is a worrying proposition, let alone with a career soldier
like Major Lorne… “Lorne is just the opposite of McKay. Lorne’s this no
complaints, do-the-job, sturdy soldier type, versus McKay who makes a meal
out of everything. It is quite a fun dynamic, so hopefully they’ll pursue
that a bit more.”
Stargate Atlantis’ fifth year sees a wealth of cast changes and
additions, two of which will mean a notable difference for McKay – Richard
Woolsey and Jennifer Keller. Interestingly though, Hewlett points out that
as far as Woolsey goes at least, McKay might experience something akin to a
meeting of minds.
“It’s an odd one,” the actor muses, “because McKay doesn’t really know
Woolsey. He’s worked with him and certainly been irritated by him, and in
alternate realities has had a couple of run-ins with him. But in this
reality it’s strange. You know, he’s a bureaucrat. And McKay understands
bureaucrats because up until Atlantis, he kind of was one. He’s the academic
version of a bureaucrat; he wants everything by the book, by the things that
he’s read. So there’s this weird sense of complete and utter disgust at the
fact that he’s taking over, but at the same time, he’s not going to argue
with someone who takes the safer route through things.” Hewlett laughs,
“McKay’s generally not the one to leap into the fray! So I think there’s a
sort of begrudging agreement. It puts McKay in a strange position, because
he somehow sees himself somewhere between Sheppard and Woolsey. Somewhere in
between those two, there’s a McKay, because McKay definitely has to dial up
the hero thing once in a while, but for the most part he’s probably more
Woolsey than Woolsey.”
Where Dr. Jennifer Keller is concerned, however, it’s an entirely different
story. Could it be that season five will see McKay struggling through yet
another hopeless relationship with a member of the opposite sex?
“They are definitely pursuing that,” chuckles Hewlett, regarding the tenuous
connection that was established between the two characters in season four.
“It’s very funny. McKay just can’t have a normal relationship. It definitely
comes up in ‘The Shrine,’ and there’s another one that we’re going to
be shooting, called ‘Tracker,’ which will be really fun because
that’s going to have some Ronon and McKay stuff, basically addressing what
has become a love triangle. It’s Ronon and McKay out in the woods the whole
time, so that could be humorous. There’s definitely a begrudging friendship
there, it’s obvious from episodes gone by, like me healing his wounds when I
had the power to do that. Ronon seems to be very good at getting to and
judging the core of people - unless he’s being misled by his friends. I
think he knows that McKay is not a bad person at the core, he’s just bad at
showing it. And bad at doing anything that involves any physical dexterity!”
It’s clear that, five years into Stargate Atlantis’ run, Hewlett has
no desire to move on, at least not just yet. With plenty to explore in
McKay’s life, and a lot going on in his own (Hewlett’s first child was born
in October), it seems that the actor is happy to carry on exploring the
Pegasus galaxy for a while to come.
“The scary thing is I feel like I’ve learned a lot from McKay. People always
laugh when I say this, but I’m actually quite shy and retiring. I’m not
really good with people, I’m not really good in first impressions, I’m not
very good at social scenes. And McKay’s kind of given me this like ‘Well,
they all hate me anyway’ attitude,” he laughs. “It’s given me the freedom to
get out of my skin a bit, and it’s given me a certain confidence. And also,
to be fair, as an actor, there’s a confidence in having a regular job. One
of the hardest things as an actor is to not base how you feel on whether
you’re working or not, because so much of your time as an actor is spent not
working. But when you’ve got a job like this, and especially a character
like this who is so much fun to play, it’s hard not to enjoy yourself.”
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