l wake up in the morning, usually late.
l come driving in with my hair on fire
and put out the flames when l reach the front gate.
l come strolling into my room half-conscious
and then l waltz in, still in some sort of semi-coma, into Hair and Make-up
and come out looking like a million dollars - well, a buck.
The guys are good, but they can only do so much without using plaster.
That's the morning fix.
The make-up stuff takes about 15, 20 minutes.
From there, we waltz off to set and do our blocking.
Blocking is this chaotic period where half-awake people
try and direct other half-awake people to stand in certain spots
and are only able to do so by putting tape marks on the floor,
especially colour-coded tape marks.
Mine is... blue?
Blue. l have blue tape.
So that's where l'm supposed to stand.
Sometimes we can, if it's important to us, move around,
but we try and limit our motion because we've got a lot to do during the day.
We finish blocking, come back out here and then, if we haven't done so already,
like the true professionals, we panic and try and learn our lines.
- lf this leads to hostilities... - lt will.
Dr Jackson, l don't believe you were invited to this meeting.
Yes, General, l know. l'm sorry. But please hear me out.
l think the situation can be resolved peacefully.
How?
We've been on this planet a long time.
lt was only in this one region that the Unas attacked.
We go in and we set up usually what starts off being a master shot.
Then we zoom in for close-up coverage of everything, especially at the military base.
And then we go in and we shoot it - masters, close-ups, all sorts of stuff.
And we do this for about eight pages of dialogue a day.
We shoot episodes in around six or seven days now.
Can we at least try to negotiate with them?
They're animals.
They're intelligent beings with a sense of honour.
lf you underestimate them, more will die.
Seven and a half pages a day. That's a lot of pages. lt's a lot of words.
l gotta get to work. Could you turn that off?
Mr Rooker, what can you tell me about Michael Shanks?
There you have it.
Usually the time when you actually get a scene is right after you finish shooting.
''That's what that scene was about!'' That's what l do.
And l come back in here and beat my head against the wall.
Then we go on to the next scene.
We do this to about 7.30 at night, sometimes eight o'clock,
Then we drive back home and try and memorise our lines for the next day,
and do anything like live a life, a personal life,
say hi to friends and family we've alienated over the past seven years.
And... that's about it. That's a day in the life.
A long time ago in a not-so-far galaxy -
actually it was seven years ago, so l guess it was a long time ago -
we all went down for a screen test
for a series based on a feature film called Stargate.
Three people just gravitated towards one another.
That was a man named Christopher Judge, a woman named Amanda Tapping
and some dweeb who didn't really know his A from a hole in the ground,
named Michael Shanks.
We all just seemed to find solace in laughing with each other.
Lo and behold, a few weeks later, after finding out l had gotten the part,
we arrived in Vancouver to begin shooting
and l found that Christopher Judge and Amanda Tapping had also got their parts.
- We shot ''The Nox'' here. - We shot the pilot here too.
This was our location for it.
We had to run up and down that hill. l was wearing 187 pounds of armour.
This was our first day of filming right here.
French hours.
Amanda's like a mother-hen, big-sister type.
She likes to have fun,
but she keeps herself within the confines of the rules of the game, so to speak.
She's almost Britishly proper.
She's almost like a big sister to Christopher and l, cos we're bad kids.
Christopher's the worst of the bunch
and l'm somewhere in between.
So Amanda acts as this big sister.
Christopher is just a jokester, a prankster.
He's the main instigator of the trouble that we seem to share,
and Amanda's there to shake her head,
pat us on the back and say ''Nice one, guys.''
Got a blister from my gun.
Chris and l, for the most part...
lt's very rare that you get people who work so often, so many hours a day,
that after so many years still like one another.
You learn way too much information about each other.
But Chris and l watch hockey games together and we still hang out a lot.
He's become a very, very close friend.
lt's amazing that the chemistry
and that original dynamic that was sparked in an audition room years ago
has managed to remain consistent
and has bonded us closer together as family.
lt's been a wonderful experience to share with those people.
Richard... He reminded me of me a lot when l first met him,
cos he was just a very private person.
But once you spend so much time around him,
you realise he's like the biggest kid of 'em all.
ln the embodiment of a 50-year-old man
who's been through the wars and has all the wisdom of that,
he's like a kid busting to get out.
lf it wasn't for the social proprieties that make him be certain things,
l think you'd just see him running around.
(whistles through teeth)
Anything for a joke. The sense of humour that we share
is the most both on and off the set.
We seem to be on a level playing field when it comes to a lot of different things,
especially sense of humour, and that's where we find our strongest bond.
Not only enjoying that off-camera and joking with one another,
but working with one another to always be laughing.
Whenever we're working together, there's rarely a serious moment.
You playing a lot with the zoom?
lt's always the sign of an amateur, if you're zooming a lot.
That's what's made it so much fun, is to find one of these people,
like the close group of friends you have a subconscious communication with.
That's an incredible strength and it makes for a good friendship.
All right. Here's what l'd like you to do.
Pick up that phone, call Mr Whoever Runs This Place...
- Hagan. - l'm sorry, but l just can't do that.
We're old friends. Tell him Mr Man Who Has The Stargate is here to see him.
He'll understand.
Stargate.
Go ahead.
Buttons, phone.
Mr Hagan, please.
Nice.
- Cut. - Cut it.
- Too condescending? - A little bit.
l used to play hockey. l played hockey for about 22 years,
and played up to university.
Being someone who's Canadian, it's what Canadians do.
We've started our own hockey team.
l've organised the troops
and it's amazing to see all the people that have played before
and are enthusiastic about playing.
lt's great because it gives you time to socialise with everybody
outside of the environment of the Stargate set,
to see everybody in their natural surroundings.
You're on an even playing field and it's always been a great workout.
You don't know you're getting a workout but at the same time it's so much fun.
l miss it so much.
We play the other teams in town - the Smallville guys, The Twilight Zone guys,
the Chris lsaak guys.
You get to meet some people you haven't seen in a while.
lt's nice to go out and make some new friends and some new enemies,
and afterwards share a beer with everybody.
Our guys, as much enthusiasm as we have,
our skill level doesn't necessarily meet our enthusiasm,
but we always get a good group of people out...
and rub a few faces with our gloves and swear a little bit too much.
l usually end up in the penalty box, so that gives me my designated rest time.
(French accent) So when you use your stick like this or your glove like this,
you go to the penalty box and you feel shame.
Two minutes for bad attitude,
too much spitting on the bench,
no gum chewing and not enough use of clichés.
l'm gonna go out and play again, hopefully.
Once l get back to playing, l really see why l miss it.
We're good.
Our team's a little...
We're learning each other's ins and outs and whatever.
lt's one of these great social sports.
You say you do it for fun but l don't think anybody really does do it for fun,
because everybody wants to win.
The good thing about hockey players is when it's all over, they leave it on the ice.
Whatever friendly rivalries that you've built up over the hour of playing
usually gets left behind and you can share a beer or 12
with the guy that you've just finished rubbing his face into the boards.
lf l wasn't doing Stargate, l'd hopefully still be acting somewhere.
l was trained as a theatre actor
in things like Chekhov and Shakespeare and Moliére.
So after l graduated from university, l started doing TV and film and stuff,
but my love has always been to carry on with Shakespeare and to keep a hand in.
lt is one of those things that you have to keep doing
to remember what you learned.
TV can be very...
lt takes up all your time and there's not a lot of room for side projects.
One of the things l wanted to do is to keep involved in doing theatre.
So l think in 1999 a local director, Morris Panych,
asked me if l wanted to participate in Hamlet.
l said ''Sure. What part?'' He said ''Hamlet.''
After l'd cleaned out my drawers, l said ''l guess l could jump at that challenge.''
l think l got everything l asked for in terms of it being a challenge.
lt's a role that every actor wants to do
and once faced with it they wanna run in the other direction.
The stage fright became all too common an occurrence on every opening curtain.
So, hopefully, that's something later on down the line l'll be able to do again,
but in the meantime l just wanna keep revisiting the roots of where l came from
and just be able to re-experience the joy
of why l first got into it and what your first love was
and to re-experience the appreciation of the art of acting.
Sci-fi fans, l think, are probably fans of all different genres of shows
and probably the most passionate and intelligent fans you could ask for.
The best thing about them is they keep you honest,
because they follow the show closer than people that make it do.
lt's important that we have fans who are that reverent and that intelligent.
lt brings the writers' game up, the actors' game up.
Everybody pays a lot more close attention to all the details,
which is essentially what will end up making a better show.
When l left the show at the end of season five...
lt's one of those decisions that you make and it's a job that you move on from,
and l've moved on from many.
When you make that choice, a lot of other people are on board
for that decision-making process.
There was a strong reaction from people that weren't happy
that the character had stepped out from being a regular character on the show.
They let their feelings be known.
lt's great to know, to get that kind of expression.
You realise that, regardless of what you think you have accomplished,
you've touched a chord and a lot of people are very reverent to the character.
That's flattering, in a way, and you realise that there is a bit of responsibility
that goes with playing a character on television.
Your fans, at the end of the day, will make you or break you,
and apparently there's a lot of fans out there
who are very supportive of the work l've done on the show, and that's fantastic.
So far behind the scenes, you can't even see him.
Thank you all for watching ''Michael Shanks: Beyond the Gate''.
We'll see you all sometime. lf not, you'll see me.
l'll look, occasionally, at the screen, but l probably won't see you.
l'm gonna go now cos l've run out of things to say.
You're following me.
ENHOH