Date of publishing: 24th
December 2006
Michael Garrett Shanks was born in Vancouver on 15
December 1970, the younger of two brothers. He grew
up in Kamloops, British Columbia. Following a number
of small roles in TV shows such as Madison, The Commish
and Highlander, in 1997 Michael auditioned for the
role of Dr Daniel Jackson on Stargate SG-1, the TV
spin-off of the original Stargate movie. Michael went
into the audition with his spot-on impersonation of
James Spader (who had played Daniel Jackson in the
movie) and got the job. He could also, as Brad Wright
said, "do humour".
In 2005 Michael Shanks and his Stargate SG-1 co-star,
Christopher Judge formed Slacktwaddle Productions
and began working on a '2007 Women of Scifi Calendar'.
The Calendar features photos of some of scifi's most
beautiful women, including Michael Shanks' real life
wife Lexa Doig. Get your calendar on www.womenofsci-fi.com
Download
the audio interview by clicking here (Zipped MP3 file)
Disclaimer: Please,
do not direct link to this file, link to the page
ONLY.
Linda Craddock: We
know you have been busy since the cancellation of
SG1 with a couple of projects. Tell us a about your
recent role as ‘David Harrison” in the
Lifetime original movie “Under the Mistletoe
and in production with Judicial Indiscretion”,
with Ann Archer?
Michael Shanks: Yeah, are you talking
about “Judicial Indiscretion” or “Under
the Mistletoe”.
 Linda
Craddock: Both of
them
Michael Shanks: Ok, it was “Kevin
Harrison” was the name of the character in “Under
the Mistletoe”. Yeah, I think its actually screwed
up on the IMDb as well, so. That was a lot of fun.
My first time working for this company in Vancouver
called “Insight Films” taking a lot of
production for Lifetime channel movies, actually during
our summer hiatus that I had taken a couple of days
off to spend time with the family and all of a sudden
these guys had called out of the blue and dangled
a couple of scripts in front of my nose and I didn’t
think anything was going to necessarily pull me away
from my vacation (laughter) but then I read the script
and it was really, really very, very nice and you
know very family oriented. You know, one of those
few projects that I get to do you know you get to
sit there and now that I have children you go um,
“hey this is an opportunity where my kids can
actually watch something that I make” and enjoy
it, so that was that and my wife understood my reasons
for wanting to do it. It was a neat part and so we
decided to work together in the summer time which
is odd doing a Christmas movie in the summertime in
Vancouver, but the cast was really wonderful and the
Director was fantastic and the experience was well
worth it what was odd about that it carried right
into working with that director again and working
with that company again which is what “Judicial
Indiscretion” was all about. The Director had
approached me in the summer time he had written a
script that was going to be produced by Insight for
Lifetime as well he mentioned there would be a part
I would do well in and that we’d talk later
on about it. He wasn’t even sure it was going
to get produced by them but at that time he thought
it would be a neat project for us to work out again
low and behold, when I was done Stargate, he called
up we just sort had to figure the logistics of making
that work and that was again, really, really a lot
of fun working with a Director named is George Mendeluk.
He’s a lot of fun working on a project that
he’s both writing and directing. And he got
Ann Archer to play the lead in it who is no slouch
herself so compared to our little Christmas movie
that we had done, previously, this was the complete
opposite. I was playing a rather nasty villain in
it that had a charming side to begin with and of course
working with Ann was an absolutely joy and a privilege
so, yeah, its’ been quite interesting.
Linda Craddock: You
now get to concentrate on your dramatic skills outside
the sci-fi world.
Michael Shanks: Yeah, it’s
certainly nice after doing that many months, doing
that many years playing a character on a show which
is a bit of a privilege in its self, its really nice
to get back to doing smaller projects and playing
more interesting, I shouldn’t say more interesting
but certainly more, you know, off the beaten path
kind of characters be able to remember how to be an
actor again (laughter). You know to reinvent characters
from the ground up and things like that. That’s
kind of what actors are made for and its’ been
a while since I have had a chance to focus on that.
Linda Craddock: What
can we expect after your current project?
Michael Shanks: Well, I’ve
been sort of cloistered at the moment. As soon as
I was done with “Judicial Indiscretion”
I was told very distinctly by my wife being the guy
who now has two children that were under the age of
2 and my 8 year old daughter and I have been pretty
much working, as I said I had taken some of the summer
vacation off and I’ve been working since I finished
Stargate that I was pretty much told for the moment,
I’m not working (laughter) but I decided to
take a little time of. So that means over the December
break and we’ll have to see what comes up. The
two Stargate movies on the slate for this year coming
up starting in April and I think both my wife and
myself are making plans to head south for pilot season
and Christopher Judge and I have another project in
the works that I’ll keep mum about it at this
particular moment because we’re in sort of negation
phases of that so I’ll be able to divulge more
as things sort of come out about that.
Linda Craddock: I
was going to ask you the latest news about the, well
the 3rd Stargate series in the pike. Rumor has it
that you have been approached to star in the spin
off.
Michael Shanks: Yeah, that’s
a load of malarkey (laughter) I haven’t heard,
you know the internet is bound with all sorts of rumors
and what’s funny is my publicist phoned me the
other day and says "you know I’m getting
all these calls from all these journalist and all
these fans as well saying you’ve been approached
to star in a 3rd Stargate series". That’s
completely unfounded. And quite frankly as far as
I know, I don’t know anything about a 3rd Stargate
series being developed at this moment, I mean I’m
not in direct contact with anybody that would be developing
it, specifically just the talking phases quite possibly,
but I am certainly well aware that I haven’t
been approached and there’s no abundant rumor
that there’s another series being developed
right now, which doesn’t mean its not true,
just means its being kept quite if it is, but no one
said boo to me about anything so I know nothing about
those subjects.
 Linda
Craddock: The producers
were very flexible with allowing cast members such
as yourself, Amanda Tapping, Chris Judge to write
and direct a variety of SG1 episodes. Tell us about
that experience.
Michael Shanks: I think it's always
interesting to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes.
It allows you a far better understanding when you
work with people that have a much different job than
you own and I think the best thing I got out of both
writing and directing the show, you get a chance to
wear those other hats and see what the problem are
faced and therefore, as an actor, when you are an
actor how you can help and be of assistance and be
empathetic to their situations as they sort of arrive
and I think everybody would do well to take a shot
or at least peer into those other worlds. That’s
the best thing I got, I mean Stargate’s a well
establish TV show even at the points when I was directing
and writing, there’s a certain amount of machinery
in place. Sometimes I describe it as a show being
able to direct itself because the DOP’s and
the actors sort of know what they’re doing and
that’s the main body of the process of making
film and shooting what the directors does usually
says “yeah, that’s sounds good, lets
do that” and so Stargate becomes the kind
of entity that you wouldn’t say it doesn’t
necessarily requires a director because its good to
have people driving the ship and always good with
people with fresh ideas, but in terms of a director
being absolutely necessary, no. That’s kind
of, there’s so many writers that sort of give
approval and give notes and whatnot to scripts that
happen the script can sometimes write itself as well
and so I would say my input in those fields was, it
was certainly interesting to do in terms of the end
results wasn’t always what I had intended what
ended up on the screen but it was often times a much
bigger improvement on what I would have done with
it. I learned a lot of the process of on a television
show. I certainly learned that everything that other
people do and everything an actor does in the world,
they all intermingle and they mesh and when I was
directing it was great to have the actors on my side.
When you’re writing something, it’s great
to have the actors input. It’s great to talk
about stuff before hand to have the actors input,
“what do you think about this idea” and
they take it and bend it and shape it and change it
but I do know it great when the two, you know television
is a collaborative process and its really great when
that machine is meshing and working well together
so I certainly learned a lot more about how one, how
my job, going back to being an actor can help other
people, can help the directors out and help the writers
out and vice-a-versa so I learned a lot in the television
world, learned a lot about the collaborative process
which is necessary. We’re not making motion
pictures here where there’s a bit of, you know,
a lot of time and budget and a lot of you know freedom,
certain choices that are being made and control being
made by individuals. It’s very necessary in
a television we call it a “mouse in the wheel
syndrome”, its very necessary that people get
along and collaborate to get a product that is of
value anyway.
Talk
about this interview on the forum
|
