|
Gilles
Nuytens
Gilles
Nuytens TSW
|
| Interview
with Gary Jones (1) |
Date
of publishing: 1st March 2005
Gary Jones was born on January 4th 1958 in Swansea, Wales.
He moved to Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada in 1986. Before
Gary delved in to a career in acting he used to work as an
Art Director for a Gazette Newspaper in Burlington.
Gary is an award-winning playwright and is a Leo-nominated
comedy writer. Now he is known by the Stargate fans as Chief
Master Sergeant Walter Harriman in Stargate SG-1.
Gary never imagined working on Stargate for nine years and
he is always ready to shoot another episode!
Gilles Nuytens: What
about the ninth season. I mean it looks like you will take
part into it, but as there is a new commander at the SGC,
you won't have to do all the paperwork for O'Neill anymore,
so do you know if you will be back to the chevron guy role
or if you will be promoted to... I don't know... the whole
control room guy!
Gary Jones: As long as i'm the guy with the
keys to the gate, i could care less what rank they give me.
they could put me in a nightie for all i care. well, okay,
a COMBAT nightie, but still... there may be a new general
but hopefully i'll stay the same or the fans will go into
WALTERLOCK.
Gilles Nuytens: What
are your feelings after 8 years of Stargate? Did you enjoy
it?
Gary Jones: Best gig in my life. cannot believe
i've been on a show coming up 9 years. it's hard to describe
being on a show that long but you get to know some excellent
people. i've made some great friends. i have enjoyed every
minute of it.
Gilles Nuytens: What
the stargate adventure provided to you and your career?
Gary Jones: well, when you go into an audition
and they see on your resume that you've been on a show for
8 years, it can't help but make them consider you a bit more
for a part. it's like, "well, he's good enough for that show
for 8 years, so..."
Gilles Nuytens: Fan's
have renamed you "The chevron guy", do you like this nickname?
Gary Jones: The chevron guy was a result
of no-one knowing my name for years. and most of my lines
involved the word, "chevron." and i'm a "guy." so chevron
guy was a natural. and i still respond to it from fans because
they always say it with such affection. but i'm happy to be
walter harriman now who happens to be, "the chevron guy."
Gilles Nuytens: What
did you enjoy the most within these last 8 years of Stargate
? Is there something special you want to say ? Something funny
you want to tell us ?
Gary Jones: As far as the most memorable
memory on stargate goes, i have lots of funny ones but i just
thought of one that is not so funny and kind of stands out.
it was a couple of years ago and i was rushing around trying
to get out of the house to get to the studio. i was late.
then i hit the highway and there's traffic. now i'm freaking
because i'm never late for stargate and if you knew the budget
for each show, you don't want to keep those guys waiting for
even 10 seconds. I finally get to work and i head for makeup.
i'm sitting there in the chair going on and on about how i'm
late and what kind of hellish morning i've had and the traffic
sucked and me, me, me. finally, dorothee the makeup lady says,
"well, at least you're not in the world trade centre." I'm
like, "why?" she points to the tv they had in the trailer
and i see a playback of the plane crashing into the first
twin tower and it takes me a minute to even get my bearings
as to what is happening. but on that day, i put all my stupid
problems being late for acting work into perspective and i
just shut the hell up.
Gilles Nuytens: What
are your plans for the future ? What do you really want to
do one day ? Is there a project, movie or TV where you would
like to join ?
Gary Jones: My plans for the future are to
keep working. Stargate is the gift that keeps on giving. but
i never count on it. the fans don't know this but i don't
have a contract with stargate so everytime i get a call to
come in, it's heavensent. peter deluise, producer and director
on stargate, told me today that in his opinion, i have a finger
in every pie. and i do. i do so many things besides stargate
even though the 'gate is my top priority. i've done improv
comedy, i've written plays and won awards for that, i've written
a cartoon series, i've co-written tv scripts, variety shows,
i've hosted shows and i've even done crowd warm-ups at game
shows. i do anything that looks like it fun and challenging
and can pay me. although today, as a matter of fact, i worked
for free. i worked on a trailer for a feature film called
CRIMINAL LIFE. it's a trailer because they don't have the
money yet to make the film. so they're using this trailer
to entice people to give them the money to make the film.
so because they have no money, all the actors worked for free.
that's rare. but it's a solid, funny premise and if it goes,
i'll have a part. I've been doing this for 20 years or so
and all i want to do is keep going. in this business there's
no mandatory retirement. you keep going as long as you want,
as long as you can produce something relevant or until you
drop.
Gilles Nuytens: As
you may know, many fans are making Stargate "mods"
for popular Video Games engines such « Half Live »,
etc. Since the start of the new official video game "Stargate
the alliance", MGM try to close definitively all this
kind of free fan work on video games. The last one to be forced
to close was a mod named "Stargate Source" based
on the game "Half-Life 2". As this is free video
games based on MGM's licence.
What is your opinion about this and what do you want to say
to these fans who are working hard on this kind of free stuff
and see all their efforts ruined by 1 simple email from MGM
?
Gary Jones: This is a very tricky question
for me. I understand the fans wanting to do all these video
games because they enjoy the show so much but the bottom line
is, MGM owns the show. And because they own the show, they
can do anything they want if they think they can make money
off it. Even I'm not immune. I've been on the show 9 years
and if someone at MGM decided that they wanted a new technician,
for whatever reason, I'd be replaced. If they felt that their
decision was in their best interests, they could do that.
The fans might hate it but that's the way it goes.
MGM made stargate ALLIANCE because they felt, not only could
they make a profit off it, but that they could control the
quality and content of it. If you have a ton of fans out there
making their own version of a show that MGM owns, the studio
has no control over what people are doing to their show. I'm
sure it's very frustrating and disappointing but that's life
in showbiz. It's a very cut and dried world in entertainment,
full of copyright laws and lawyers. Studios want to protect
their interests and sadly, if it means shutting down sites
that fans have made and run, that's what they'll do. I've
worked in entertainment for 20 years and it's just part of
the landscape.
Gilles Nuytens: And
as I heard that the shooting of season 9 begins tomorrow,
I wish you good luck and good work!
Gary Jones: yeah, i have three days on the
first 2 eps. (by the way, everytime i mention the word "eps"
to peter deluise, he goes, ""what's with this EPS business?
are you too busy to say EPISODES? where have you got to be
in such a hurry? slow down. it's EPISODES, not EPS, for God's
sake!") it's a two parter and i'm working on march 2, 3 and
7.
Meanwhile. I'm still auditioning for any and all other stuff.
today i'm auditioning for the part of a lawyer in a tv movie
about the scott peterson case. you know, the guy who murdered
his wife and unborn child? if you don't know much about it
over there, google "scott peterson" or "laci peterson" and
see what pops up. it's a massive trial over here. so naturally,
they're making a movie about it. and all the main parts are
cast in hollywood and all the smaller parts are cast up here
in vancouver. So, I'd better be off. I need time to learn
my line.
cheers, jonesy
Gilles Nuytens: Thanks
for this scoop, I'll have a little thought for you on these
days!
stay tuned for more exclusive interviews soon!
Check out another interview of
Gary Jones here (2)
Check out another interview of
Gary Jones here (3)
|
| Interview
by Gilles Nuytens for The
Scifi World |
|
