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I recently had the chance to talk
with actor David Hewlett, who you probably know best as Dr. Rodney McKay on
Stargate Atlantis. Hewlett has had a long and varied career, however, and
he’s now made his directing debut with A Dog’s Breakfast, which he’s also
co-written and stars in. David is one of the single nicest and funniest
people I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing, so read on to hear about his
new film and Stargate Atlantis!
- Mike Spring
Editor
Hi David, how are you?
Well, I’ve spent the morning with my head in a bucket of
alginate of some sort.
Sounds like fun!
They wanted to do a cast of my face. I think they’re going to replace me
cheaply. [Laughs]
So what can you tell us about A Dog’s Breakfast? What’s the film about?
A Dog’s Breakfast is kind of a Fish Called Wanda-like family murder
movie. Basically its about a guy who has no life whatsoever who’s only
friend is his dog, who’s little sister comes to visit and brings with her
her new fiancé who is this cheesy sci-fi star. Her brother hates this guy so
much and he decides that he’s the worst choice for his sister, so he decides
he’s got to get rid of him. But seeing as he’s never been any good at
anything in his life, murder is actually no different for him. It’s just
sort ridiculous antics and the extent this guy will go to to get rid of this
so-called fiancé. It was just a lot of fun; the idea was to do a nice,
old-fashioned, silly kind of Cary Grant/Arsenic & Old Lace kind of comedy.
So how did the film come about?
It literally started off as an experiment that I was going to do with a
couple of video cameras and a few friends, and then thanks to Jane’s
involvement (my wife and business partner) as producer, it turned into a
real film.
Editor’s Note: At this point David and I get into a discussion about DVD
Snapshot. Stargate fans, tell your friends that Dr. McKay is a DVD Snapshot
reader!
I love the internet. You can’t give me a URL without me checking it out.
It just sounds so obvious. And it’s been such a boon for us with the film as
well, with the fans, especially the online fans.
I was going to say, I would imagine the internet has been a big part of
your show’s success.
Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing now. I’m very lucky because I’m, you know, a
nerd already. This is not exactly new ground for me. A lot of my fellow
actors were sort of actors first and then get dipped into the sci-fi world
and I was sort of sci-fi first and then introduced to the acting world.
So this must be very exciting for you.
Well this is it, as a guy who grew up watching sci-fi, it’s just so much
fun to have kids come up to you and refer to you as Rodney McKay. There’s a
lot of pride in that. Going back to the film for a second, we just wanted to
make something that the fans would get a kick out of. We wanted something
that was going to appeal to the people watching Stargate, and we have a few
nods to the fans stuck in there with little clips from this so-called sci-fi
soap. It should be a lot fun. The DVD’s got a lot of extra stuff on it.
This is your first time directing, correct?
It is, yes.
And how was the experience for you?
I expected to do it on a much smaller, less-seen scale, but it just made
more sense and I think it was more appealing to the people working on it
when it became a proper film, you know? The reality is that we put the film
together for like $120,000, so it’s still a very personal project in that
most of that came from me. [Laughs]. I sort of felt like there’s two things
that were very important to me. One was, I didn’t want to waste someone
else’s money if this wasn’t something I wanted to do. You know if I got in
there and started directing it and was like, “I suck at this. I don’t want
to do this,” I didn’t want it to be someone else’s money. And also, I really
wanted to keep it small and contained and make sure we could work with
friends and family and just have complete control over it. Because we have
such a small window for work. Basically, we’re booked for Stargate for most
of the year, so we had to make sure we could start when we wanted to and end
when we wanted to.
That must say something about the camaraderie you guys have on the
Stargate set.
I think it says how little lives we have. [Laughs] It says more about
the lack of our social lives than anything else. The amazing thing is we
talked Chris Judge into it, given that he actually does have a social life.
And you worked with your sister Kate again on the film. What’s your guys’
working relationship like?
This was actually the first time we worked together; on the film. We
hadn’t done the episode of Stargate yet. The unfortunate thing about films
is that they take so bloody long to come out. Television, you knock them off
and a few months later, they’re on TV. Part of the reason I put Kate in was
because I kind of wanted them to see what she could do. I knew there were a
couple of episodes coming up where there was the possibility of having my
sister show up, and I just thought how cool would it be to have my real
sister do it. She was amazing. I mean, we fight like cast and dogs. All the
time. Our relationship is built on mutual disrespect and insults. To the
point where when we shot that episode of Stargate, the director actually
came up and said, “Now, remember, you’re siblings.”
So speaking of Rodney, how did you end up on Stargate Atlantis? Was he
brought back because he was so popular in his appearances on SG-1?
I’m not entirely sure. I definitely got the sense the producers liked
what they ended up with because I did the one episode and then ended up
coming back for two more. Honestly, I think that there was no plan for
putting McKay in Atlantis to begin with. In fact, when I auditioned, they
actually put me on tape for a different character. Which I thought was very
peculiar as I thought that McKay had made a little bit of a ripple judging
by the anti-McKay sentiment from those first few episodes. If the fans had
their way, I don’t think it would be McKay. In fact, one of the first things
I read when I went on one of the fan sites when we first started was “ What
the hell? Of all the great characters on SG-1, why would you bring bloody
McKay in?” [Laughs] And I couldn’t help sort of agreeing with them, because
he’s such an ornery character. But I think they’re smart enough to know that
the stories come from conflict; if you’ve got a character who doesn’t get
along with anybody, it’s just a fantastic source of story and character
material to work with. McKay just can’t get along with anybody.
Well now it seems as if he might have found a bit of romance?
Yeah, I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one. It seems so unlike McKay
to have a girlfriend. I think you’ll find that as we get into season four,
you will find a very funny collapse of his romantic life.
How much of you is in McKay and vice versa? Do you consider yourself a
complete opposite of the character?
I wish. I wish I was more different. [Laughs] You know, I find the
longer I do it, the more like McKay I become. I think it starts off with you
try to put as much of yourself into a character as you can. The longer you
do it, the more you start picking things up yourself. The thing I love about
it is that McKay has given me a sense of confidence that I don’t think I had
before. I’m now expected to sound like a jerk, and so it’s sort of fun to
play that up every so often. From an ego standpoint, at this point I think
I’ve got a pretty big ego. I don’t think anyone goes into acting without
one. Anyone who’s arrogant enough to think that people will pay to watch
them I think has a certain arrogant quality to them. But the McKay thing has
just allowed me to play with that more. Jane still has a 15-minute rule.
When I get home, I’ve got 15 minutes to lose McKay or I lose my other half.
[Laughs] Yes, pointing and snapping at ones better half is generally not a
good thing.
So recently, with the episode where Dr. Beckett died, you had a
chance to go beyond spouting technobabble and being funny. How was that
episode for you as an actor?
It’s so odd because I think as the years go by, the more you do a show,
the more like life it becomes. You begin to react to it in the same sort of
way. Like in life, you have these horrible, horrible things happen; there’s
no rhyme or reason, and you sort of begin to take that on with the show as
well. It was quite a shock. We lost a very popular guy – both on set and off
set—we lost a very popular character. He’s got that great sort of
Scotty-like quality. He’s just a fun character to play with and we had a lot
of fun bouncing our various grating personalities off each other. It was an
odd episode. In fact, it was over before I think we even really figured it
out. That last scene was really quite… I was amazed at how sort of choked up
I got. I was like, “What the hell? The guy’s not dead! Just his character
died.” They can always bring people back. It was a tough episode to do. I
certainly had my doubts when I heard about the exploding tumors.
Compared to SG-1, you guys seem to have had an inordinate amount of cast
changes.
It’s a little nerve wracking, isn’t it?
What does that do to the dynamic on set?
Honestly, it’s really weird. It’s really odd. It’s not a comfortable
thing. You get into a pattern with these characters. And the people; forget
the characters, you get used to having people around. It’s--on a totally
selfish level--as an actor it’s a lot of fun to have different people to
play off. It keeps you from falling into any rhythms or patterns you might
fall into otherwise. The reality is that it certainly ups the peril. There’s
the feeling that you can lose anybody at any time and I think that’s
important for a show like this. It’s fun and it’s character based and it’s
science fiction, but at the same time you don’t want to lose that sense of
peril, that we don’t know who could be next. SG-1 started like 11 years ago
and I think television has changed since then. I think audiences expect more
of that kind of thing nowadays. Frankly, the uproar with Beckett and stuff,
I don’t think that hurts. Because it got people talking about the show and
it shows the networks that people do care and that they’re going to fight
for these guys. Its so funny because there’s great business reasons for
doing it, but on the personal side you go, “Where’s Paul?, Where’s Torri?”
So what can we expect in season four?
Season Four starts with everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
With the first two episodes, I was like, “If this is the way the season is
going, I’m going to be dead by episode four!” [Laughs] We’ve got asteroid
fields and Replicator bases and it’s just absolutely insane. But Season four
is also just--- we’ve got Amanda Tapping joining us and we’ve got Jewel
Staite. Which, come on, if you love sci-fi, it’s Jewel Staite! Kaley from
Firefly! I now get to work with two icons from sci-fi. And they’re not hard
to look at, incidentally. Actually, we’ve got an episode coming up which is
essentially the three of us trapped on a planet together. There’s definitely
worse days at work. [Laughs]
So wrapping up, what’s one thing you want the world to know about you
that they don’t already know?
That I’m not exactly like McKay. Exactly being the key word, I think.
[Laughs]
Well, David, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
A pleasure, indeed. Thank you very much!
www.dvdsnapshot.com
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