Stargate SG-1 Finale Focus: Richard Dean Anderson, Television Icon

THE FIRST PART OF THIS RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT IS AVAILABLE ON MY MULTICHANNEL BLOG. CLICK HERE TO READ THE FIRST HALF.

RDA interview transcript.

" It’s the combination of all the elements along the way. As far as my expectations, our pick up was for two seasons from Showtime originally. Before the first season was halfway over, we had gotten a another two year pick-up. So before we finished our first season, we have four seasons, an 88 episode commitment, to look forward to. The rest is kind of history. We just kept getting picked up. Showtime didn’t want us beyond the original order But syndication came in and Sci Fi picked us up. You can’t foresee the future.

A man by the name of John Symes was working at MGM and I’d worked with John at Paramount doing MacGyver. He was my executive over there. When he went over to MGM. He gave me a call and said “I want you to look at this movie and read this script and then I want you to do this.” That was his pitch, that was his process. He knew that I would do my homework and wouldn’t make a snap judgement on anything and I did all of what he expected me do. And I saw in the the project the potential for something that had some legs to it, s omething that could possibly go. Ironically, I wasn’t looking to go much further than the original pick-up. It kind of threw me a curve a little bit personally. But I was having so much fun. I loved working with the people, I love the quality of the shows. There were always some stinkers, of course.

Part of what John Symes did out of the gate was demand a two season pick up from the start. And Showtime was looking for product at the time so it was a nice marriage. I think their investment paid off."

[Question about Legends and how that experience had an impact on decisions going forward.]

"I could continue to be embittered by the experience. But I can’t be. Business is business. We just weren’t what UPN wanted at the time. One of the reasons they gave us for not picking it up beyond the [initial] 13 [order] was that the show was “just too dusty.' I think in retrospect, the only regret I have is that we really weren’t allowed to feel out where we could go with the show. It had some elements of comedy, historical referencing, theatre of the absurd. It could have gotten more into a fantasy world. One of our main characters, played by John de Lancie, was based on Nicholas Tesla who was tantamount to one of the geniuses of the 20th Century. He was Thomas Edison’s nemesis. We had based one our characters on him. We had contraptions that were really fun, but still based in the modicum of reality. Potentially the show was a really wonderful romp with tinges of all those things. But I can’t bemoan that it went its way.

I think it was imperative that I continue to be in the executive producer title. I exercised the elements of that title by helping to edit, helping to edit scripts, giving notes on cuts, things along those lines. And also throughout the shooting/production process I would make changes on the fly, improvising some of the elements of the dialog, collaborating with the directors and Brad Wright and Rob Cooper to make the characters and some elements of the overall concept a little lighter, less serious.

I was truly afraid if we tried to do what Kurt Russell and James Spader did in the movie we weren’t going to be around very long. Life is too short to be playing that stoic, that straight. There weren’t a lot of smiles, many chuckles, in that movie.

When John Symes approached me I said, well, if I’m going to be a part of this I need to be trusted to take this in a direction that’s less Kurt Russell and less the movie franchise. I need the production to become our own Stargate.

From the first table read, the manner that I went about requesting that, with the writers at the time, sort of caused us not to have table reads any more because so much of what I would be doing was off the top of my head, or a twist here or a twist there of some written line. I kind of noticed over a period of time that it was somewhat offensive to the directors and I don’t think it was respectful to the writers. I think one of the best ideas we put into play was not to have any table reads any more. They didn’t need to be embarrassed like that, so we just started giving notes on scripts and collaborating, but not in a public forum. It just became a much healthier situation and much more constructive.

I left for a season. They called and asked if I’d been interested in doing the 200th.
I was asked if I’d be interested in doing some further episodes and I said absolutely. I’m extremely happy to come back for whatever they want this season.

I had to admit finally that I missed the communal feel of Stargate, the familial air that permates our set. Also there’s a personal thing happening in my life, specifically with my daugher. I left the show to be with, at the time, my six year-old daughter. I’m a single dad and she was in great need of having my presence in her life. I did what I said I was going to do. She and I have had many conversations about work. She likes Stargate and the fact that I work. She actually came up to me and said, 'Dad, if you want to go back to work now, it’s okay.' I said, 'what about me? What if I miss you too much?' She put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'You’ll be okay, Dad.' She’s the most spectacular being I ever known. Things are very good."

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