I started going to the conventions later than the others
just because I didn't feel like doing them.
I had a preconceived notion about what they might involve
and I had a few fans that were a little overzealous,
and didn't really want to throw myself in that arena.
Then the others were coming back, raving about how great it was
and how positive and unobtrusive the fans were.
So it got me thinking, "OK, maybe I'll go with other actors,
or I'll go to obscure ones and see what they're like."
And I went to them and the experience was neat.
It was great, it was intimate, they were very respectful and enthusiastic.
You get experiences where you see the kids and how much happiness
they get out of meeting you and talking about the show.
I have three questions.
OK, I'll make it two.
One is: Why does Daniel constantly get beaten up on the show?
Apparently because people love him.
The second is: Did you have to get beaten up or was it just special effects?
You get those positive vibes back and you feel like you're giving something back.
Even though it's just a television show, just a job to us,
it means other things to other people.
It's nice to be able to give a bit back
and to travel to different places all over the world and experience that,
and when you work in film we don't get an audience,
and now we're seeing the impact we have.
It was a great reverberation of the work that we'd done
and a great thing for us to do to give back a little bit just by being there, I guess.
So they became quite enjoyable, actually.
I was...
With the cocktail parties, lunches and breakfasts
that they put on at the conventions, those to me are the toughest aspect,
because the great thing about being on stage
and being in the autograph lines and the photo lines, there's a distance, a barrier.
But when you're having breakfast,
you're at these tables with ten or twelve people, and you try to interact with them,
but you can only give a portion of your time, so there's a kind of feeding frenzy.
That can be a little bit overwhelming.
And you want to spend time with each person,
and in groups there's louder ones, more energetic ones, more outgoing ones
that seem to dominate conversations, so those can be a little bit frightening.
There's not a lot of one-on-one time.
That's a difficult aspect when you're zipping there and back.
Now and again someone will corner you and be able to get a bit of time,
but it feels imposed on, although you do want one-on-one time with people
because they came there for a personal experience of it.
They can watch something on tape,
but they want a direct interaction and there's little room for that.
When they get you at one of these parties, they feel that it's one-on-one time,
but there's a thousand people that want that, so it can be a little bit overwhelming,
and nobody gets their one-on-one time. It makes you go, "I got to go."
Join us in a warm welcome for Michael Shanks!
Oh, my God.
Does that room eventually end back there?
Wow.
- Hi. - Hi.
Going up on stage is always a unique experience.
Sometimes experiences can be similar.
If you're with Christopher Judge, ever, it's always interesting.
He manages to find ways to not talk about the show.
But going on stage is always fun. That's the best part about doing these things.
You interact directly with the audience, there's always an energy in the room.
Give actors a microphone and give them a stage and a captive audience
and, you know, stand back because you'll have to get a hook to pull them off.
I'm touchy today.
No, I'm not a daddy yet, otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I love you.
I love you,
but I think my wife would kick my ass.
So, Michael, when you left the Burbank con,
Christopher and Amanda left in a limo,
and you left in a Ford Taurus.
What was up with that?
The feedback is great. The audience is informed, so you have to be on the ball,
and that's the funnest part of a convention.
It's not doing the photos and stuff like that and the autographs,
cos you just see this blur of people that swings by.
But getting up in front of that audience and interacting
and pulling people in and joking with them
and having them see you in a different light is a lot of fun.
They get to see it, they enjoy it, and you experience some really tough questions.
Over the last eight years,
what scene do you think best shows the friendship
between Jack and Daniel?
- Or episode. - Or episode?
- Could I get back to you on that? - No.
Do you have any ideas, as a writer, that you would like to see happen?
I don't have an idea, but we do an episode this year called "Prometheus Unbound",
which guest stars Claudia Black in it,
from Farscape.
Sounds like you guys already knew that.
It was so much fun to work with her and we had a great...
It's such a fun episode, that we talked about getting her character to come back.
So I want to write an episode that features her character.
Maybe a one or two-parter, for sure.
"Since you fly from Canada to the US so frequently,
do the customs officials recognise you by now?"
Didn't we already do this?
"Or are you hassled as much as everyone else?"
Good question.
On my way down for the screen test for Stargate
I got strip-searched.
No, I'm not gonna re-enact it.
I thought it was the funniest thing. What a great way to start the show.
Yeah, the little puppy on the leash,
that the man carries, came up and went...
And, of course, I went...
Friendly doggy.
Thought I had a kibble in my pocket, or something.
But apparently that was the universal sign for "He's got drugs".
So they took me into... They searched my bags and couldn't find anything,
and I'm saying, "I don't know where you're getting this from."
He said, "We know you have them. Just tell us now. The dog doesn't lie."
So I guess in order to justify them searching you further,
they have to have someone place you under arrest, under suspicion of.
And then they...
No, I didn't get the rubber glove, though.
But I did get scoped out.
So we swapped phone numbers and they let me on the plane and I flew out.
If you could give Daniel superpowers now for a showdown with Anubis,
what would you give him and why?
Well, the first thing I'd do is I'd give Daniel two sets of powers.
The first one is X-ray vision.
Not to fight Anubis, though.
And the second one is...
I would give him some sort of special starch beam.
Cos you know that stupid robe that Anubis wears all the time?
That's all it takes. You stiff that puppy up, he ain't moving.
What surprised me most about the fans is their enthusiasm is refreshing,
and obviously they have a lot of enthusiasm for the show.
Their knowledge, when I go, "That episode where the guy did that thing",
and 60 people pipe in the name, and I haven't even mentioned too many details,
but they know the show that intricately.
I go, "I work on this show and these people know more about it than I do."
That's surprising. It makes you be on your toes. You can't go in there like:
"I like working on the show and I don't remember that episode."
You have to have your A game cos they want to know...
If they know this much before you show up, they want to know all the details.
So you better have the rough patches pretty down
before you start talking about the infinitesimal details.
They know them, the essence, so they'll get you.
Wow. The outfits that people show up in. I don't know where they get them.
Some stuff, recently, MGM are selling it, but these people make their own stuff.
They watch the show enough to take a villain who's in prosthetics
and make the whole costume.
We spent a lot of money making that stuff and these people,
out of their own time and pocket, make prosthetic masks and hands,
and sometimes their costuming rivals ours.
There's a lot of care and effort, but, man, it can be overwhelming.
It's fun when they're in costume. What's not fun is when they come in character.
Push the red button and we're all toast.
When you go, "Oh, what a great costume" and they go:
"I'm not in costume. Don't you remember me?" That can be truly frightening.
That can sometimes throw you. Hopefully they're just kidding, but some aren't.
We operate in a vacuum here. We work for the same couple hundred people.
We forget that we have an audience.
Doing that gives you an honest feedback mechanism
when you get fans that aren't afraid to call you on your BS.
They say, "I hated that episode." "Why?" And they tell you.
You get really good, honest feedback from the people that matter most -
your core group of fans that care about the show
and are really involved in the details of it as much as you are.
So we get a great feedback mechanism.
It really feels encouraging and puts a face to your audience.
It lets you know to bring your A game when you're doing the show,
because if you go to another of these things, you'll face those people,
and if you say, "I think you're gonna like this episode", you better really think that,
because they'll tear you to pieces when you get there.
It's a great payoff for doing the show.
Coming from live theatre, the interaction with the audience is immediate.
And this is kind of a latent feedback from the audience,
which is the same kind of feeling, it just happens later, so there's that same payoff.
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