Date of publishing: 20th December 2005

The DeLuise family interviewed in exclusivity for The Scifi World! Peter DeLuise, David DeLuise and Michael DeLuise interviewed together! Peter DeLuise is known for his role on TV show "21 Jumpstreet" alongside Johnny Depp, and later for his role in Seaquest DSV/2032 as Dagwood. Now he is producer, director and writer on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
David DeLuise is known by fan's for his role of Pete Shanahan in Stargate SG-1, the boyfriend of Sam. And Michael is more known for his role of Tony Piccolo in Seaquest alongside his brother Peter. He also played in 21 Jumpstreet and the parodic episode of Stargate SG-1 "Wormhole X-Treme".

This interview was originally conducted by Nicolas & UgzY in december 2005.

You can also listen and download this interview.
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Peter DeLuise was otherwise occupied for a few minutes; therefore we started the interview with David and Michael DeLuise.

TSW: What do you think of your brother?

David DeLuise: “I think he is very big and loud (laughs). I think he’s great. I like that he was working on the show because I think that helped a lot with me being a part of the show. He is a very good director, he is very clear with what he wants on screen and what he wants to have filmed and he's able to get back across to everybody so we can get the best shot.”

Michael DeLuise: “I’m very glad that Peter found Stargate. He was always attracted to Star Trek when he grew up and he had such a fascination and a fondness for science fiction that uh... He said when Star Trek came around, the first new generation, he said "I'll give this much of my pinkie to be a cast member on there." So, for him to be a producer, a director and writer on Stargate is… I'm happy he is actually doing what he loves. I know he wants to do some more acting in his life, now that he has just lost a lot of weight, he looks phenomenal.”
“So, I'm happy and in this trip, these two conventions are facilitating my brothers and I are getting together and visiting Europe in France and Germany, so it has been a wonderful experience. Plus being on Stargate has allowed us to be like brothers like we were when we were children, without the extremities of parents and children and we can just appreciate our closeness. When we were growing up we were very close and we had a wonderful closeness that I miss now. I don't get to see so much with families or even in my romances. There's a closeness that you feel because you see each other throughout your all life. There's a certain safety in that closeness.”

TSW: David, Was it hard to work with your brother?

David DeLuise: “I thought it might be hard but he was very respectful of the things I was doing. He just wants me to do a good job and I just want to do a good job and I want to help him and doing the best thing. We were able to work together really good. There was one thing, he told everybody on the set and all the actors that I was crazy. So when I walked on the set, everybody looked at me like "what is he gonna do", "how is he gonna act" and ... I act just like him. But it was very easy to work with him. He didn't direct me in all the episodes. Will Waring directed one of them [Chimera], I’m not remembering the other person's names but it’s like a very tight family, all the people that work on the show get along really well and so it was nice.”

Michael DeLuise: “Yeah, it was in the special episode where I was in. He was the real director and also he played the director inside the show within the TV show. So it was a nice complexity in the fourth law, breaking the fourth law I thought it was very creative and ingenious.”

David DeLuise: “And a lot of the other actual crew members played crew members in the show, right?”

Michael DeLuise: “Yeah, it was a lot of fun.”

TSW: Could you tell us your famous line on the episode?

Michael DeLuise: “Oh, it does say colonel on my uniform! Could it say it here? How about here?”

David DeLuise: “In French, the dub is different from what he actually says.”

Michael DeLuise: “I hit somebody and then say: ‘It says Colonel in my uniform’. And then in the outtakes, I say ‘you know, it doesn’t actually say Colonel on my uniform. Could it say here? Or here?”

UgzY: “The French translation was ‘you can’t fool me’.”

David: “That's crazy! It's very interesting. Do you think that they could translate it better and it would be better?”

Nicolas: “I think they could, but it would have cost more money and time.”

Michael DeLuise: “You know what is funny? Your tone. Your inflections. If I were to say, "Hi how're you?" it's very different from someone going "Hi how are you"? You know what I mean? The different tones, because we were watching a French TV and the different tones of the people because the different shows in Los Angeles, you know how they sound, and sometimes the voices are higher“

TSW: Michael, Would you like to appear in the episode 200 of Stargate?

Michael DeLuise: “Yes, that would be fun, yes! That would be a lot of fun to do it again!”

Nicolas: “With more lines maybe?”

Michael DeLuise: (Big laugh) “I'm happy to participate, I'm glad to just be part of it. It’s fun.”

TSW: (to david) Your character is not really appreciated by some fans, especially the shippers, ...

David DeLuise: “WHAT???” (laughs)

TSW: ... because there are a lot of Stargate fans who want Jack and Sam in the show to marry and you broke that up. So, how do you feel about that?

David DeLuise: “You know, I think the thing that is good about the character of Pete Shanahan is he made Jack and Sam really realize that they did want to be together. I think it's great, I like that, whether people react negative or positive, they were emotionally connected to it. At another convention, a lot of girls were like: I don’t like Pete Shanahan, but I like you, which was very sweet. And then I told them; they should come to my room. No, I’m just kidding!”

TSW: Now a real question, what was it like to kiss Amanda?

David: “Amanda Tapping has very, very soft lips. And I like to roll the shovels with her.”

(Inside joke: the French expression for a French kiss is literally translated ‘to roll the shovels’).

Michael DeLuise: “How do you say that in French?”

UgzY: “Rouler des pelles” (readers… don’t go to a girl and tell her this, it’s mildly rude!).

David DeLuise: “Rouler des pelles. It was... it was so good. She was very nice. We did many, many takes. I think we did eight. Action. Cut. Action. Cut, when we were kissing. And that was the best day of my life (Michael and David laugh)”

David DeLuise: “She said that. We did it four times and she said: ‘I think we need to do it again’. It’s the truth”

UgzY: “Yeah, you wish!”

David DeLuise: “It’s so the truth! And you know what? All the shippers out there… I’m just kidding. It’s the truth. This is where I shed some people that if they really care about the character of Sam Carter.... I mean Sam and Jack can’t be together because of the military. So if they REALLY cared about the character, then they would want her to be getting some shovels. You know what I mean?” (Michael laughs very loud at this comment!)

Peter DeLuise joins us after having finished another interview.
(Everybody says ‘bonjour’ to Peter)

TSW: So, all the DeLuise family are actors, why?

Peter DeLuise: “Our dad was an actor, and our mum did singing and acting, and it is was it was. It’s like what your dad does?”

Nicolas: “He’s a truck driver.”

David DeLuise: “Ok, so you know a lot about transporting. “

Peter DeLuise: “Are you motivated to transport things?”

Nicolas: “Absolutely not.”

Michael DeLuise: “Ok, but you know, we saw our father do this. I really didn’t make my decision until after high school. When I took a trip around Europe, backpacking, for six months. And when I came back, I was like, that’s what I want to do!”

Peter DeLuise: “When I was quite young, I thought that everyone’s parents were actors. And I didn’t realise some people were garbage men and some people were school teachers, so by the time I figured this out, it was too late, I already wanted to be an actor.”

Michael DeLuise: “I’m still trying to figure it out! There is a comedian on stage who says: Adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for suggestions. It is an excellent way to avoid having a real job and pondering what this is about.”

TSW: Seaquest DSV, Stargate. What is the difference?

Peter DeLuise: “One is still on the air! The joke about Seaquest was it was Star Trek under water. I think the story potential of Stargate is much, much, better. You want to go to a planet, you just have to step through a portal and there you are. Where in Seaquest, the stories were limited to things that happened in the ocean.”

Michael DeLuise: “Also you worked in that as first director, right?”

Peter DeLuise: “Yeah, that is a major difference as well. But I think he meant just challenging-wise.”

Michael DeLuise: “I think Stargate provides a provocative platform to be able to do fantasy and reality. And when I was going to do Stargate, I thought: Maybe this is real. You know, maybe there are other dimensions, and I liked it. I was able to have a little fantasy in my mind. So that was fun, I found out that it was just real but…”

Peter DeLuise: “Well, that’s a great difference because Seaquest took place in the future and Stargate is happening now, so there is a kind of common point of reference, and maybe in the bottom of Cheyenne Mountain, there is a Stargate and they’re going to other planets. You never know.”

Michael DeLuise: “And that’s fun. I think it makes our reality is a little bit more interesting. There is a movie called: ‘What the Bleep do we Know?’ And a lot of quantum physicists have a lot of theories and at the extremes of science, whether big or small these big ideas that are explored on Stargate are perhaps possible. And I think a lot of very intelligent people are in interested in Stargate. So I think it is a little more provocative to great thinkers.”

TSW: A personal question to Peter: You made a lot of appearances. Were they planned or was it just like’Oh, I want to be the guard’ or ‘I don’t have anything to do at the moment’?

Peter DeLuise: “Some episodes were planned. Brad Wright would tell me: ‘you should be the cameo here’. In the case of Urgo, ‘you should be the younger version’. Sometimes it’s spontaneous, I’m not busy enough so I say: ‘Ok, I’m gonna do a cameo’.”

Michael DeLuise: “Have you ever had Alfred Hitchcock do a cameo on the TV? That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

Peter DeLuise: “That was what inspired it, Alfred Hitchcock. And I did the machine gun guy in ‘Show and Tell’, and you know it something to do that is fun and fans seem to like it so I kept doing it.”

UgzY: “Oh yes!”

Peter DeLuise: “You like that?”

UgzY: “Yes, definitely.”

Peter DeLuise: “Good luck finding me in Stronghold. It’s not on yet. I made it more than once.”

TSW: When the Ori read Daniel’s mind, they learn about Atlantis. So when will the Ori go to Atlantis?

Peter DeLuise: “That’s a great question. The priors know a lot because Vala and Daniel Jackson were projected into that area of the Galaxy where the Ori are, they became aware of us. And that’s why they’re coming. It’s not unlike when ‘Q’ projected the Enterprise in Star Trek. The answer to your question is: soon. The Ori are coming! And we are screwed! But to answer more directly to your question, the Ori are the bad guys on SG-1, and there’s always a danger that the Wraiths will get to Earth and that the Ori will go to Atlantis. But for now, the bad guys are just staying on their own show.”

TSW: What do you think about the fact that a lot of sci-fi fans are more interested in the love affairs than in the action side of the show?

David DeLuise: “Well, I think that is like society. We’re more interested in who is Brad Pitt kissing than what movie he is doing. We want to know the romantic interest and I’m just happy to be a part of the romantic interest.”

Peter DeLuise: (to David): “Yeah, it’s good to kiss Amanda Tapping.”

David DeLuise: “Yeah, I already talked about the rolling the shovels!”

Michael DeLuise: “Our governments would get along real better if that was the priority!”

TSW: Would you like for Wormhole X-Treme to become a real show one day?

Michael DeLuise: “Yeah!”

Peter DeLuise: “That would so funny. I want it that very much. Galaxy Quest!”

Michael DeLuise: “When I was watching that, I had such an appreciation for that movie.”

TSW: Lastly, is there something planned for the episode 200?

Peter DeLuise: “Oh, you want to know if it’s a continuation of Wormhole X-Treme or something. The only thing I know about episode 200 is that Martin Wood is going to be directing it. Sorry!”

David DeLuise: “That’s not a lot! Anything else Peter?”

Peter DeLuise: “Well, it’s very possible that they come up with an idea for the episode 200, but I don’t know about it at this point.”

David DeLuise: “If I paid you?”

Peter DeLuise: “If I did know, I would tell you, but I don’t know.”

Michael DeLuise: “I will pay you 20 euros! Would you know something now?”

Peter DeLuise: “I might.”

TSW: Is there any chance that we will see Richard Dean Anderson in a few episodes?

David DeLuise: “Oh, that’s a good question!”

Peter DeLuise: “As far as I know, there are no plans for Richard Dean Anderson to come back to the show.”

David DeLuise: “But, Peter, is this something that you say, ‘never say never’ in Sci-Fi?”

Peter DeLuise: “Yes, never say never. I thought that when we did the big pull back, at the end of Moebius and he was fishing and there was a fish in his pond and Carter had finally agreed to go fishing with him and then the boys came out with the cooler. I thought, this is the best send off for Richard Dean Anderson ever. And then they spoiled it by bringing him back the next year. It was not a good way to end the Richard Dean Anderson [era]. I think the pull back in the pond: good, the deluded stuff after: bad!”