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David Hewlett Spills Stargate Secrets
by Ileane Rudolph
He's a filmmaker, a writer, a rapper and — oh, yeah — David Hewlett plays
arrogant scientist Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis. We talked to
the droll Canadian about A Dog's Breakfast, the indie he wrote and
stars in that just arrived on DVD, as well as the fourth season of
Atlantis.
You're all over YouTube rapping and mock-apologizing. What's up with
that?
The thing I love about YouTube is it's almost like having an instant
audience for improv. But sometimes you tend to be a little silly.
It has probably increased your popularity.
I'm afraid that people do seem to like it. [Laughs] MGM wanted to do some
promotions for the show and they said, "We have this great idea. You can do,
like, a rap thing!" I said, "That's a bad idea."
Sounds like you have video regret.
The reality is almost everything I do I cringe about later.
Probably not about A Dog's Breakfast. Did you pay friends to write nice
reviews on movie sites?
It's the Stargate fans. They've just been so incredibly supportive about it.
We have this website, ADogsBreakfastMovie.com, that's had more than 700,000
visitors and they love the trailer. It's like they're this giant marketing
department. Honestly, I think that was why MGM picked it up. We could walk
in and say, "Guys, there's a website that lots of people are interested in.
They're making posters, printing T-shirts.... " When the DVD first was
available for pre-order on Amazon, it was on the top 10 for a week. We're
now available on iTunes and Amazon for download.
Why make a movie?
I wanted to try directing. And then I dragged in Jane Loughman [Hewlett's
fiancée], who is not only producing the movie but is also producing my first
child. We're a month away from baby No. 1.
Congratulations! So what is A Dog's Breakfast?
It's A Fish Called Wanda-style comedy with an old Cary Grant kind of
silliness. It's about a very lonely, sad little man. His only friend is a
dog — played, incidentally, by my dog, Mars.
Is it true you share a toothbrush with the pooch?
In the movie we do share a toothbrush. Now Jane won't kiss me anymore. Paul
McGillion (Atlantis' now-dead Dr. Beckett) plays my sister's fiancé,
a cheesy sci-fi star whom my character instantly loathes. I decide the only
way to save my sister from this terrible fate is to get rid of the guy. My
dad calls it a nice family-friendly murder movie.
Don't we see a lot of you in this family-friendly flick?
I always thought there were two kinds of males in the world: the ones who
look good naked and the ones who look funny naked. I can think of nothing
funnier than someone who would be mortified to see himself naked being
naked. Of course, I'm that idiot.
Besides McGillion, which Stargate buddies have you dragooned?
Rachel Luttrell, and the unbelievable talent of Chris Judge.
Playing...?
Chris plays an Internet-dating loser who just can't close the deal on a
date. He seemed so incredibly inappropriate for the part that I thought it
would be very funny to have him play it. He's hilarious. I'm in the process
of writing another film with him specifically in mind for one of the leads.
And Rachel's role?
She's a space princess on the cheesy show. In fact, we are now talking to
Sci Fi about spinning off that part of the movie into a Larry Sanders-type
show about making science fiction. We might do some webisodes that could
lead up to a series.
Let's talk about Atlantis. What's up this season in the Pegasus galaxy?
It's an odd season. It's very much like life, where we got hit by these
unfortunate disappearances of certain characters. All of a sudden, boom!
Your best friend's gone. But selfishly, because we've got new characters,
there's a great new dynamic happening. With Amanda [Tapping] here now, it's
amazing.
So you're happy about your fellow techno-babbler joining the cast?
She's such a giving actor. I really credit her for me getting Atlantis.
Had she been less receptive to my absolute obnoxiousness when I was on
SG-1, it wouldn't have worked.
Are you saying that McKay's hubris is seeping into David Hewlett?
The scary thing is, the more I play him, the more like him I become. Because
of this character, I have sort of a confidence now where I fall back on my
inner McKay. When you're pitching shows to networks, McKay is very useful.
You go in there and sound like you know what you're talking about.
McGillion is back for two episodes. How? Isn't he dead?
Let's say that he becomes a product of his own medical genius. Paul looks
very L.A.-fit. I told him maybe he should start doing more work and less
exercise.
The fans boast he's back because of them. True?
Definitely. There was a huge response on the Internet, we had bagpipers show
up at Bridge Studios where we film.... I wouldn't be surprised if he shows
up more. He's always a popular character. We have Serenity's Jewel
Staite playing a doctor this season. No offence to Paul, but Jewel is a lot
easier to look at.
What's the relationship between McKay and Staite's Dr. Keller?
McKay's never been terribly good with women. So when Keller comes in, she's
beautiful, she's very smart and she's very quickly annoyed with McKay,
because he's her patient. He's the guy at the party who says, "Does this
look infected to you?"
No romance with the new girl?
There's definitely something romantic happening with Keller... but not with
McKay. McKay's season, from a romantic standpoint, is an absolute disaster.
There are a few episodes that pretty well kill most dreams of McKay settling
down happily. Dr. Katie Brown, whom he dated, is back, which leads to a sad
episode.
Judge's Teal'c shows up, too.
Yep. There's some fight choreography that's going to knock the Stargate
fans' socks off. A little tidbit — Ronan and Teal'c are fighting side by
side.
The two bodies beautiful together at last.
No kidding. I should have sold tickets for people to watch the rehearsals.
You can't get Jason [Momoa] to keep his damned shirt on! I spend the whole
time running around with a towel just to cover the man up.
What's this season's major storyline?
The Replicator/Wraith war plays a huge part — it's a season of alliances and
broken promises, double-agent kind of stuff. It also has some of the biggest
effects. They've got episodes where they're spending more on one hour than
they did on the first half of a season before.
Rachel's pregnant in the story as well as in life. Will we know who the
father is?
Part of the mystery of the season is tracking down "Daddy." Teyla does some
minor butt-kicking, but we're all so protective of Rachel. We're like,
"There's gunfire. All right, Rachel's out of here."
Finally, with all this, you also made time to appear in Tapping's Web
series Sanctuary. As...?
I did this fun little serial-killer role in the first episode. I'm more of a
giant red herring than anything else, but hey, it's fun to play a red
herring.
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