We are privileged to welcome the return of Stargate SG-1’s Corin Nemec! We will delve deeper into his book, “Creating a Character for the Stage or Life,” by unpacking and contrasting two characters from his past: Harold Lauder and Jonas, of course!

Share This Video ►
Buy Corin’s Book ► https://shorturl.at/jtMSU
Corin’s Cameo ► https://www.cameo.com/imcorinnemec
Corin’s Film Work ► https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0005269/credits

Visit DialtheGate ► http://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate
Visit Wormhole X-Tremists ► https://www.youtube.com/WormholeXTremists

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:22 – Opening Credits
0:48 – Welcome
1:10 – Guest Introduction
2:56 – Creating Jonas Quinn and Harold Lauder
6:40 – Encountering a Brand New Role
9:32 – Auditioning With a Monkey
12:55 – Getting the Role of Jonas
16:50 – One of Corin’s Favorite Sci-Fi Movies
18:38 – A Similarity Between Corin and Jonas
24:58 – Cast Against Type for Harold
31:34 – Building a Character Through Episodic Television
34:15 – Sharing Ideas for a Character
39:45 – Sneaking In Behaviors
42:48 – Was Harold a Home-Run?
47:25 – Corin’s Script for “Fallout”
52:37 – Upcoming Projects
55:12 – Cut Scenes from “Fallout”
58:08 – Production Design for “Fallout” and “Frozen”
1:00:54 – Bringing Back Jonas for SG-1 or Atlantis
1:02:14 – Theodore Corgivelt
1:04:10 – Thank You, Corin!
1:05:40 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:06:48 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#turtletimeline
#wxtremists

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 306, the number was just in front of me, and I don’t even remember it, of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. I appreciate you being with me. We are the Stargate Oral History Project. And if I don’t get blown away to Oz, we should have a show for you here. It is raining corgis outside. I’ve got my producer Linda “GateGabber” Fury joining me for this episode along with Mr. Corin Nemec. Hello, sir. Welcome back to Dial the Gate.

Corin Nemec:
The crowd goes wild!

David Read: How are you doing?

Doing very well, thank you. Raining corgis? I am on my way.

David Read:
Right, absolutely. And I just realized…

Corin Nemec:
Mine’s right there lying on the floor.

David Read:
Is one lying there?

Corin Nemec:
He’s lying right there on the floor behind me. You can see a piece of his ear.

David Read:
And I just realized I hadn’t set up this camera so we’re gonna do this real quick, like that, and then Linda. Hi, how are you doing?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Doing good.

David Read:
Here you are. Good to see you. How are things in San Diego?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
The weather is really weird. No tornadoes.

David Read:
Good. It’s good.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Like, a hot 90 degrees one day, and then, like, 50 degrees the next. It’s just been a very strange spring. The whole family is down with COVID. I’ve missed it so far. I think because I had it back last summer after Comic-Con. I have somehow avoided it all together.

David Read:
Me too. I’ve never had symptoms.

Corin Nemec:
I don’t know what that says about me.

David Read:
We’re made of… I guess we’re made of Teflon. I’ve been waiting for symptoms all along.

Corin Nemec:
Well, I’m an alien so it’s, like, my whole system inside, my internal workings are totally different than everybody else.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
You’re an alien so you’re from another world.

Corin Nemec:
It remains to be seen. These earthling diseases and things. I don’t get them. These earthly flues.

David Read:
You were talking heavily about your character-building process, beginning to near the end of the conversation the last time we were on together, all three of us. And we were discussing this because you recently came out with a book and that of course is the wrong dimensions, too, so I’m gonna fix that there. Creating a Character for the Stage or Life. An introduction to the New Era Acting Technique. This is, and I think Linda, you had a copy as well? There it is.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah, we both [inaudible].

David Read:
It’s cloaking and uncloaking. Hey! Perfect. You can see the link for that in the description below. If you guys wanna get a copy, I recommend it. One of the things that I approached you about was we’ve been doing this show for five years now, and I really haven’t sat down with anyone to specifically talk about the process of creation. And not necessarily creation out of whole cloth but of taking material, raw material that’s on a page, and bringing it to life. And there are a lot of ways of doing that. This is one of the oldest professions on Earth. And you have had a lot of experience in this industry since you were a kid. And so, I really wanted to approach you about this from two perspectives. One, obviously, Jonas Quinn because Jonas is A, awesome, and B, he’s our connection to you through this franchise. But also, Harold Lauder, who was a Stephen King creation in the original miniseries in the 90s directed by Mick Garris, of I’m not mistaken.

Corin Nemec:
Great guy.

David Read:
And everyone… I’m sure there are people who are, like, “Why these two?” Mainly because other than a couple of reasons, they’re very different people, other than their resourcefulness. And I think they also care a lot of what other people think about them. Other than that, they’re completely different. And I wanna take a script character and originally… And weave him through Jonas with the book character that you adapted and see how we go from there. Does that sound good to you, Linda?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
I think that would be really fun. I re-read the different steps of the process that you outline in your book, and I was, like, “I really kind of wanna try this myself.” But of course, I am completely between community theater things and have been for 15 years, so I don’t know when I’m gonna get a chance.

Corin Nemec:
Well, honestly, it’s one of those things that you can do just for fun around the house. You can get a play that you enjoy. And even when you’re alone, you can just run dialogue, run monologues, and just try it in different accents, different characters, different dispositions. Just for fun. Even invite some friends over and do some scripts readings and stuff just for the heck of it.

David Read:
Adult play time, it sounds like what it is.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
I can think of exactly the friends. I think we’re doing that some weekend soon.

Corin Nemec:
That’d be a blast.

David Read:
If you’re in the audience, you’re more than welcome, in the YouTube chat, to submit questions to Corin. The mods will get them over to me and we’ll have them near the end of the show. Corin…

Corin Nemec:
The mods, do they pull up on scooters with Union Jack shirts on stuff?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
And wrenches.

Corin Nemec:
Listening to English beat.

David Read:
Looking at a character, like Jonas, when you first saw the words on the page for the character like that, or when you approach any character, what is your first thought? What is the first thing that goes through your head? Is it compatibility? Or “I think I can do something with that?” Are there characters where you’re, like, and honestly, I’d be curious to know, “No, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t possibly do that. Or I don’t wanna do that?” How do you approach building a character.

Corin Nemec:
The first thing is to read the description that the writer has put forth, either in the script or in the breakdown for the audition, or whatever. Generally, there’ll be some type of clue as to what they’re looking for, and hopefully I hit the target for… I do tend to find my own way to whatever the character is. And maybe sometimes I hit the nail on the head and other times maybe I make it a choice that outside the realms of what it is they’re looking for. But really, it’s what feels most comfortable to me, for me, as an actor. What comes out organically. Obviously, if the breakdown says the guy’s an Appalachian and he’s not very well-read, he’s hunched over, whatever. There’s certain characteristics that they may describe that you just can’t work around. You have to hit the target on certain character descriptions and stuff like that. But otherwise, I’ll just run the material and see what I’m compelled to do as an actor. What feels most natural and organic for me, before I’ve done any real character analysis. A lot of times, especially with auditions, there’s just not enough time necessarily to really, really break down a character and do a full history for the character. And you also don’t have… Normally, they don’t even release a whole script to you, depending on what the project is, so you’ll only have whatever is in the pages that you’re delivered for the audition. So that alone can make it tough. It’s exciting but it’s tough.

David Read:
Sure. Linda, make sure you have your phone on you. I’m messaging you.

Corin Nemec:
Check that phone.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
I will check that phone.

David Read:
We’re talking behind your back, Corin.

Corin Nemec:
That’s OK. I’m used to it.

David Read:
You’ll probably agree with me that I think we underestimate failure way too much in terms of what it can teach us. When you’re going through this process, have you ever had an experience where it was, like, “This is not for me. I get what they’re doing but I’m not the one to carry this.”

Corin Nemec:
Not necessarily. I’ve definitely made some choices in the audition room that didn’t work. There was this one audition I had for this Vietnam series. This was years ago. It might have been in the late 90s or so. But it was a great script, a great part, but the scenes were scripted with this… There was a monkey that was dressed up like a little soldier that was in these scenes and the character has to interact with the monkey and the monkey, like, crawls into his arms and all of this stuff, and I’m, like…

David Read:
“This is a great scene everybody. This is a great story.”

Corin Nemec:
I was, like, “What am I…? How am I supposed to do this?” So, I went to Toys R Us, when it existed, and went to the toy section, the stuffy section there, and lo and behold, I found a stuffed monkey that was literally wearing as close to a military uniform as you could find. And I was, like, “This is fortuitous. This is, like, a god shot. I am meant to bring this into the audition room with me.”

David Read:
He was made for the audition.

Corin Nemec:
So, I took it in. It was in the backpack and everything. And I waited until we got to those scenes and then I unzipped it and I withdrew this stuffed monkey, and I proceeded to do this whole scene with the stuffed monkey and all of that stuff. And unbeknownst to me, they were dying inside. They thought that it was just the most ridiculous, hilarious thing they’d ever seen. I didn’t get the part, but I actually thought, like, I really connected with this monkey. I felt, like, if they had watched it with some type of objectivity, without being… It was probably the fact that it was actually dressed the way that it’s written in the script. They were probably, like, “Did he, like, go home and sew this outfit together himself, or what?” I’m sure they thought that I had absolutely lost my mind.

David Read:
Absolutely. Part of me would be, like, “Tell them. Tell them the story when you get in there.” And the other part of me [would] be, like, “They’re not gonna believe him for a second. That is not happening.”

Corin Nemec:
So, it’s tough to make the right choices in the audition, especially nowadays, because all the auditions are done digitally so there is no opportunity for somebody in the room to redirect you, to say, “Yes. But no. Try this instead. Maybe a little less anger,” or “a little more anger,” or whatever the case may be. So really, it’s a real roll of the dice now. And then you also have to pray that they even watch them.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
When you auditioned for Jonas, I’ve sort of heard that they kind of just grabbed you out of the hall when you were there for another project. Is that true?

Corin Nemec:
I was down in this quad area at MGM. They don’t have studios anymore but at their corporate offices. And I was auditioning for a totally different project. And the breakdown for the new character had just come out that morning. I’m just gonna shoot myself because I cannot remember the casting director’s name right now. But they were walking through the quad area, and I had auditioned for them in the past for other things, and they just stopped and said hello to me. And we just started having a chat, and they were just saying, “How things going?” “Yeah, good, this, that, the other.” And then they started looking at me and they started kind of whispering to each other. They’re, like, “Heath Ledger,” whatever. And I was, like, “Heath Ledger?” And they’re, like, “Yeah, you kind of look like Heath Ledger.” And I was, like, “Well, that’s strange. That’s a weird thing but OK, thank you.” And they said, “We just got this new breakdown for this character in Stargate, and you could be perfect for it.” And I was well familiar with the series. I was much more familiar with the feature film because I didn’t have Showtime. All I knew about the series was all the billboards and bus banners and posters for it. Every time the new season was coming out, they would saturate Los Angeles with Stargate stuff, and I was, like, “Wow. That must be a big hit for Showtime.” I just didn’t have Showtime in my cable thing. I rarely watched television back then anyway. So, as it turned out, they just sent my material up there, my past material and my demo reel, and I got it through that alone. And I guess the excitement of the casting people thinking that I could be right for it. But really, my audition was in that final episode of Season Five, because they basically were, like, “Let’s see how it works, if he gels with the other actors, and he’s good on set, and everybody gets along, we’ll likely bring him on to play this character in the rest of the series,” or the rest of that season and change. When I found that out, I kind of thought, when I first got it, I was, like, “OK. This is great. I’m gonna go do this and then I’ll be back for next season. It’ll be great.” And then I found out through my manager at the time, Robert Stein. He called me up right before I was flying up there. He’s, like, “Now, listen. If they’re not feeling you while you’re doing this episode, you may not go on the full season,” and I was, like, “Well, don’t tell me that. It’s terrible pressure to put on me.” And then when I got up there, the wardrobe was cool but that outfit they had me in, the vest thing and everything, was very stiff. It was really, really rigid, and they kept me… My posture… It was like wearing a… What are the things that the women wore?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Like a corset.

Corin Nemec:
It was like wearing a corset. Totally was. And so I was, like, really stiff. I had to kind of turn like this and stuff. So that was challenging alone to feel relaxed in the getup, and I just had to make it part of the performance, really. I definitely had nerves doing that because for me it was a great opportunity to get involved with a franchise that already had a long track record of success, and to be a part of the franchise that came from one of my favorite sci-fi movies that’s ever been made. Stargate the feature film was absolutely one of my favorites. I just thought it was an incredibly well executed sci-fi movie. And I was also already interested in the whole kind of ancient aliens type of theories, and aliens in the Bible, and the mixed use of the pyramids in Ancient Egypt. What were they really used for and all of this stuff. And I had actually done, in the late 90s, a short course at the Rosicrucian college up in San Jose, California about the sacred use of the pyramids and stuff. And basically, in this course, they essentially said that they were astral projection chambers so this idea of them being Stargates, and this idea of being able to travel to other planetary systems and things like that, using them, was more done in astral projection. Not, like, physically but they were going there spiritually, or in their aetheric form.

David Read:
Transcending the piece of themselves.

Corin Nemec:
And they would be able to project their consciousness into other higher dimensional realms, or other star system, or other whatever you wanna call it.

David Read:
Call it quantum entanglement. All kinds of things going up there.

Corin Nemec:
It was fascinating.

David Read:
It’s interesting that SG-1 did that with the stones, after you left. They had these devices where you could exchange each other’s consciousness. So, it sounds like they played with that for sure. What about Jonas was easily accessible to you, and what did you really have to work on?

Corin Nemec:
Really what was most easily accessible about Jonas was just his innate sense of curiosity. That’s very organic to me. I’m a curious person. I’m an interested person. And his amiable nature. That’s very true to my nature as well. I don’t like to be confrontational necessarily. It’s not like my knee-jerk reaction, I hope, to be confrontational. I’d rather be a problem-solver than a problem-maker.

David Read:
Sure. Absolutely.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
What about Harold? Was there stuff about him that was just right there on the page that suggested the character from the audition sides for that, or did you have to…? In your book, you talk about, if possible, trying to talk with the director and the writer. Did you get a chance for either character to do that before you started playing them?

Corin Nemec:
Not really. From the Harold Lauder’s perspective, that was an audition that I really didn’t think that I had a chance in hell of getting.

David Read:
Really?

Corin Nemec:
I had auditioned a couple of years before for the movie Sleepwalkers, and unbeknownst to me Mick Garris really loved the performance that I delivered but didn’t think that I had the right physical attributes for the character. And that was an overall consensus with the producers and other people. He felt, like, I had the raw talent to bring characters to life that were interesting and unique. So, when I got the breakdown for Harold Lauder, I understood who this guy was, but the character description was really the opposite of [me]. I am slim, fit, I think I have a pretty decent complexion, and the way the character was described was, “Heavy set, overweight, with bad complexion,” and then all of the other attributes that they listed. So immediately I was, like, “I don’t even understand why they’re bringing me in for this, but I get who the character is in terms of him not feeling like he fits in anywhere, and that he just wants to be a part of something. He’s in love with somebody who’s way outside of his realm of reality for dating. The Molly Ringwald character, of course.

David Read:
It’s every man’s male fantasy that he and her are the only ones left on Earth.

Corin Nemec:
So, I just got a load of who this guy was. I had a decent amount of time to work on the material, so I was able to get completely off book for it. I didn’t have to have my audition sides in my hand or anything. And I went into the room, and we spoke about it for a little bit. I didn’t wanna get too far out of character while I was in the room, so I didn’t wanna have too much chit chat before going on before we dove into it because it’s such a peculiar character to play. There’s a lot going on with him. It took a while for me, even when we were filming, to be able to get to the point where it was easy to jump into the character and jump out of the character. For the first month or so of filming, there was a lot of time that I spent in the dressing room and all of that, just maintaining the idea of who Harold was, and his behaviors. How he physically behaves and all of that. And so, I did the audition and they were talking back and forth a little bit and everything. And it seemed odd, but it seemed kind of positive. They just were, like, “Thank you,” whatever, and I left. And literally by the time I got home from the audition, they called and said, “We’d like to hire him for this.” And I was, like, “That is insane.” I was so sure that there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was gonna get that job just because of the physical attributes. But then once I got on set and I got to speak with Mick a little bit, and he told me that he’s the one who recommended me for the part. He had talked to Stephen about me and said that he believed that I could do the part even though I didn’t look the part. He really believed that I could bring the character to life. And apparently, he had to fight pretty hard to even get me in the room because just based on my headshot alone, Stephen was, like, “No. That’s not Harold Lauder.”

David Read:
“He’s too pretty.”

Corin Nemec:
Oh, thank you buddy.

David Read:
Go ahead.

Corin Nemec:
But it opened up a whole new vista of opportunities as an actor, finally getting a chance to really play a character role, something that was really outside the box for me, especially from anything I had played in the past. And it was just a wonderful, wonderful experience working with such a great group of talented actors and filmmakers, and to be on set on a project for five and a half months, that’s just… It’s dreamy. The longer I shoot the better, as far as I’m concerned.

David Read:
This was the first character that I had seen you in, and I had fallen in love with King through it a few years earlier, and then just watched every miniseries after that. But if you go, and anyone who is not listening, if you haven’t seen The Stand… The original, not the new one. The new one is ungodly.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Doesn’t have Corin in it.

David Read:
A real shame. And I’d love to talk with you about that offline at some point. But I would argue that Harold has the greatest arc of the show because he starts in this middle space, and ascends, and then goes to hell, and then, in Harold’s words, “I was misled.” But when you have a performance that you think was really good, and you’re, like, “I really want this. I have to have this,” and you don’t get, what are your parameters as an actor for compartmentalizing this? “It’s a gig, it’s not the end of the world. Something else will be along next to try.” How do you not get absolutely washed away in regret for something that you know you could have really sunk your teeth in and wrapped your head around?

Corin Nemec:
I don’t know… I was so busy from age 12 acting onward, there was a… I remember auditioning for two of the different characters in Stand by Me, both the Wil Wheaton character and the River Phoenix character, but I just didn’t fit the mold for either one of them. But they did audition me for both of them. That was after I had done the movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream, playing Jeff Bridges’ son. I wanted one of those parts so bad, but I was also a little younger than those guys, and I looked really young for my age back then. And I just didn’t get that movie, and I was just so bummed about. I really, really, really wanted that job as either one of those characters. But that was the only time that I really remember a true sense of regret, like, “I can’t believe I didn’t get it.” Otherwise, it sort of just becomes this blob of noes. The one thing that you gotta get used to in the film and television industry is the word “No.” After a while, you can’t hang on to it. It’s tough enough going on 40 years in the industry, and although every audition is an opportunity to practice my craft, so that alone is exciting, but when you’re 40 years in the industry and you’re still doing the auditioning and all of this, and it’s still, like… Even though I work quite a bit in comparison to a lot of other actors out there, so I am blessed, no doubt. It’s tough because at the end of the day, every role could be the last that you ever do. It’s a very fickle industry. It’s not an industry that can be relied on as a career that you could gamble on and say, “Guaranteed, this is gonna last forever.” It just doesn’t work that way in this business. And it is tough. I definitely have gone through quite a few ups and downs in my career, just in terms of maybe wanting to be busier on bigger projects, more… I’ve done… How many really bad B-movies have I been in? But at the same time when I get an opportunity to act, I get excited about it, so it doesn’t matter if it’s sand, sharks, or dragon, wasps or…

David Read:
And mosquitoes.

Corin Nemec:
Sharks or mosquitoes, or robo-croc, or SS Doom Trooper, or any of these other sci-fi originals that I did. It’s just a great opportunity to go and be on set and be a part of something that I love. And I have a good attitude about it. If it wasn’t for being in Manu’s class, I don’t know if I would have the kind of longevity that I do have. Being in his class taught me exactly what I said. There’s no permanence to the idea of being in the film business. And that’s on every level. It doesn’t matter if you’re a makeup artist or a prop master or you work in grip and electric or you’re a cinematographer. It doesn’t matter. My father’s one of the best production designers that’s probably ever been in the business, and he still works to this day. But he goes through the same thing I do. We talk and he’s, like, “I keep getting these films and then they fall apart, and I’ve done all this work for them, and then they don’t get greenlit, and then they are concerned about my age,” because he’s in his early-mid 70s now. He doesn’t look like it at all, but he still rides his bike, like, 120 miles a day with no problem. He’s very youthful. He looks great, and he’s just got talent that is beyond words. Joe C. Nemec III, if anybody wants to look him up. So, I know that it’s something that I just have to be willing to let go of, as much as I wanna embrace it.

David Read:
For sure.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
With episodic television, you’re constantly getting a new script and learning something new about your character with every script. Or at least with every script that focuses on your character in some way. How do you deal with that? You’ve built your character, you have an idea of what you think their life was, and then you get information that maybe doesn’t even gel with that. How do you reconcile that and incorporate it in?

Corin Nemec:
That’s interesting, actually, because I did a re-occurring character on Supernatural, and it turned out that my character was a demon, but they never let me know that. And I had made certain character choices that I felt were really right for the character, that at the end, when they revealed the script that I was, like, “Oh, I’m a demon,” it actually made me go, “You know what? I’m so glad that I didn’t know that because I may or may not have chose[n] peculiarities of the character that could have potentially given that away.” So, it was actually really cool that I didn’t know that until the script came out that revealed it. And then to me, it made the character even more interesting, watching it up to that reveal. As far as a character like Jonas Quinn, the writers, they’re so great over there. The writing-producing team on Stargate. They were so good. Even if it was different writers writing different stories, they were so good at keeping a throughline of a character, and not really deviating too much from it, except for whatever they’re putting the character through. But generally, unless something happens to that character, like, there’s some type of… Maybe he gets a symbiote in him or something, or whatever. There’s certain elements of the story where the character could change in a really drastic dynamic way that doesn’t make sense to what you expect out of the character. But for Jonas, I think that they did a really great job just keeping that throughline of who this guys was and allowing me some flexibility and creative freedom to bring my own quirks and my own character traits to it that aren’t necessarily in the script.

David Read:
When you have ideas for someone, how much of it depends on the behavior of the producers [and] how open they are to you going and saying something about it or contributing ideas? Or are there situations where it’s, like, “I’m not going to go near them. They’ve got it figured out. I’ve just gotta trust it.” Or do you always feel encouraged to say something and to incorporate things? What do you do in a circumstance where, “I’ve got an idea for something,” but you just have people at the other end, who are applying pen to paper, who just aren’t receptive?

Corin Nemec:
You definitely have to read the room. Depending on who’s in charge creatively, definitely it’s important to know my rank in the order of things and not to allow for an egoistic approach to my work and believing that I’m more important than the overall production. That’s easy. That can happen. That can absolutely happen, and I’ve witnessed it on rare occasions. Almost 90 plus percent of all the actors I’ve ever worked with have always had great attitudes and have really been 100 percent behind making whatever there is better. But it is about reading the room and figuring out what might be allowable to introduce that might not have been there before. For me, studying with Manu as well, he always talked about crushing reality into our scene work. He liked to get us to introduce behaviors and activities that weren’t necessarily on the page of the material we were bringing into the workshop. And that really is what are people doing. There was one time when I did some monologue… I don’t know… I think it was… What was it from? God, I can’t remember the name of the play now. But anyway, I did this one monologue and I chose to be building a house of cards while I was doing the monologue. Other times I’ve chosen other activities and stuff. But it took my attention and focus off of performing this character for the audience, and put this attention and focus on having to make sure that the cards lined up right, that they were balanced, that I could get everything, you know… So, the dialogue was coming out as almost, like, second nature, not like something that was forced at all. And the frustration of trying to build it when it would fall down in the middle of the monologue, and then having to pick [it] back up, it brings something more to it, when something can be introduced into the scene as far as activity goes. With Jonas, one of the main [things], I did do a lot of eating and drinking and things like that. That was one of the character traits that I thought was fun for him because coming from another planet…

David Read:
He’s experiencing everything for the first time.

Corin Nemec:
Yes, exactly. And the biggest thing that, you know, from another planet, what you’re gonna be hit with most is what are you eating, what are you drinking, what’s there as sustenance for you, and what was maybe the food like on my planet, on Langara, back home. In my mind I pretended, or I created this history, that food where I’m from is very bland, not exciting, there’s not really gourmet chefs, and it’s all sort of, like, a cafeteria in a big corporation. Just a corporate cafeteria, lunch school food.

David Read:
Nutrients. Just nutrients.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah. School lunch rather. And so I thought that was an interesting approach to it. There was a little bit of frustration with me in one particular scene with an orange but that’s a different story. After that scene, they were, like, “Look, if it’s not in the script, don’t do it.” And I was, like, “OK. Fine. You got me.” But I felt that figuring out, like, the banana in space scene, that to me was… The banana was not scripted, and I felt like it brought something to that scene that really made it like a totally different experience for the audience than if they just were watching two aliens sitting on the deck of a spaceship talking.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
That was one of the things I enjoyed most, honestly, were those little things that… I’m now finding out they were all little things that you just sort of snuck into the character. But they were moments that were really, seriously fun. And when I’m talking about the character of Jonas with other fans, those are the ones that always come up in conversation. We’re, like, “Remember the banana scene? Oh, the orange, and it’s all over the table.” We love those. They shouldn’t have made you take anything out. What about with other characters you’ve played. Harold? Was there anything that you snuck in there?

David Read:
Yeah, I’d love to know the answer to that.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Yeah, Harold was really… I think the wardrobing, figuring the wardrobe of this guy, what he was dressed [in], how he liked to dress. The behaviors, for me, it was just a lot of… He was an introvert who did not wanna be an introvert. It was like he was fighting against being closed off, and that to me was the most important thing, was having this machine going inside of his head that he couldn’t stop in terms of what he’s thinking about and all that. Even with the scenes, especially the ones with Molly Ringwald, is, when she’s not paying attention to him, you can just… He’s just… The rat is on the wheel and it’s just running top speed and he’s just trying to figure out how do I approach this relationship that will serve me in a way that will help him achieve his goal, which is for her to love him.

David Read:
Very controlling.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah, it was wild. Interestingly enough, when I was on set, Mick really wanted to ramp up the tension between me and Molly Ringwald on set and everything. And so, he asked me to just go and be around her. Don’t necessarily interact or anything but just go and just break her space a little bit. And so when she’d be in the middle of a conversation with somebody else, I would go and stand but stand, like, with my back facing to her but, like, I’d get really close to her when she couldn’t see me and I just stand right there and I could hear her behind me slowly figuring out that I was right behind her. And she[‘d] be kind of looking over and then she would scurry away. It was in order to, I guess Mick’s theory was, that that will make her more uncomfortable with me on set, if I make it really strange and uncomfortable with her offset.

David Read:
When you look back on at that role, is there anything that you feel you missed in terms of, “I wish we could have taken it [and] dialed it just a little bit this way,” or do you think you fulfilled what you wished that performance to achieve on screen? Because then it goes through editing. And then they spit out this character that’s, like, “They put these pieces together? That equals… That’s not the equation that I gave them.” It’s not that it’s about you but you have your parts of the equation to play.

Corin Nemec:
The arc was so specific for Harold from him going from the more introverted, uncertain, kind of shy, strange guy that he was in the beginning, to then being seduced by Nadine, coming to himself… His ego then suddenly, finally emerges and he becomes this narcissistic, more, not diabolical, but he’s just more certain of himself and he just inserts himself into situations that previous to meeting Nadine, Laura San Giacomo’s character, he never would have ever done any of these things or behaved that way. He never would have had the certainty that he could get away with it, necessarily.

David Read:
She opened some doors. Had she been a different kind of person, had she been having better visions of certain… Mother Abigail instead of the walking dude, I think she could have made him a much more positive person instead. She just played on his desire for lust and revenge.

Corin Nemec:
Yes, absolutely. That’s totally true. He was a very malleable personality that whoever finally paid attention to him, of the female persuasion… It’s not that he was ever really necessarily looking for a father figure or a best friend. He just wanted to find a woman that loved him or liked him or paid attention to him even. Gave him the time a day. So yes, that was definitely what was really cool about the arc. And you mentioned it earlier that Harold Lauder, most assuredly, I think, had the most dynamic arc of all of the characters in it, and then especially in the end coming to the realization that basically he had been used.

David Read:
It’s too late.

Corin Nemec:
Wow, that he was… It’s too late. I think that that was very cool. But I was totally happy with it. It was great. The shooting schedule was obviously… It was such a big production. And I had a good amount of time between days on set often. And it gave me a lot of time to really, really work the scenes, rehearse them in my hotel room, and just go over them, and over them and over them. And so, when I was on set, I was very, very loose. I was really present, and I had made certain choices. But again, as an actor, I don’t ever want those choices to seem so pre-planned that they’re obvious to the audience. I still want there to be enough relaxed quality in my performance that it seems spontaneous, even if it isn’t necessary. But also, to allow for spontaneity to be accessible in the moments, that something may happen that’s unexpected and to have that not throw me off but to introduce a whole new behavioral reaction to a situation.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
On the track of introducing new things, you wrote Fallout. So, was this completely a story you wanted to tell for your character or how did that grow in your head that this was what you wanted to be the story?

Corin Nemec:
Brad Wright, he unfortunately told me that they have an open-door policy there for pitching show ideas. I took that as, “OK. Let’s do this.” I might have driven him a little crazy. I can’t remember how many different show ideas I pitched to them. But then after a while, I think they realized, “This guy’s not gonna stop until we take one of his ideas and make it a show.” But then Joe Mallozzi took me kind of under his wing and really honed my pitch, how I pitched, and how I wrote the treatments and the synopsis and all that kind of stuff. And especially how I wrote the beat sheet for the script itself. The beat sheet, basically… They don’t want you to write any dialogue or anything like that. That’s gonna… They’re gonna do all of that kind of stuff so from the story perspective I’m really just writing what’s happening, what’s taking place, in a more of a descriptive manner, without really inserting any kind of dialogue. And that was tough because as a writer you wanna write what are they saying and everything but it’s more writing intentions and things like that. And out of, like, maybe the six or eight different ideas that I went in there and pitched them, this particular one they found interesting enough that they wanted me to go back and re-work it. And I re-worked it, and like I said, I worked with Joe Mallozzi. What a great guy. He really, really helped me to get it into the format that they’re used to seeing, that they’re used to working with. And that’s what pushed it over the edge, was working with Joe. But it was a fun storyline. It was just something I was just… I just wanted to figure out something that was, on a scale one to 10, the outcome of the events was gonna either be total disaster or 100 percent success, without too much in between. Everything is at stake. You can’t… This either works out or everybody’s dead, or whatever. So those are the kind of storylines I was trying to go for, this really, really…

David Read:
Big scale.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah, big scale.

David Read:
Lots at stake.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah. So, it was a great experience for me to be able to go in there and work on that particular episode.

David Read:
Was the undercover Goa’uld thread in there from the beginning or is that something that was added later?

Corin Nemec:
No, that was there. That was absolutely there.

David Read:
From the word “Go?” That’s great. She was good.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah, totally. I was just saying, the writing part… Because I’d written quite a few scripts previous to my time on Stargate. Nothing that had been produced yet but that certainly gave me a boost in my morale as far as being able to get stuff produced that I wrote. And it is exciting. In more recent times… I’ve written stuff that came out years ago but in more recent times I wrote a script called Dead Man’s Hand, based on a graphic novel by Source Point Press, that Stephen Dorff and Cole Hauser starred in. A very cool western. And it was very cool to see them performing the dialogue that I wrote and everything. It was really awesome. And a movie of the week kind of a female driven thriller called Deadly Justice that’s out as well, that came out last year, early last year, too, that I’m exciting about. And that one, nothing much changed. On Dead Man’s Hand, Brian Skiba, the director, did do a director’s pass on it. Not much changed but some stuff did. But it’s nice to see something that is 100 percent all my writing, and Deadly Justice is that. And that was a lot of fun. I have some stuff, too, that I’m working on now that’s in a pre-production kind of a stage that should be going into production this year that I’ve written as well, besides other movies of the week that I wrote years ago.

David Read:
I’m taking a look. You’re keeping busy. I’m really, really happy for you. Is there anything in particular from these that you can pull out that you think Stargate fans should be on the lookout for in the future?

Corin Nemec:
I wish. I have a really cool sci-fi series that I wrote a number of years back that hasn’t been produced. It has to do with reptilian agenda and that whole thing. I think it’s a very cool concept. I don’t wanna reveal too much about it. You never know if I can get it made. But I would love to do more in the sci-fi fantasy world. I just love those genres. They last a lot longer than other genres do, for the most part. And I also really, really enjoy the whole convention circuit, and convention world, and that whole scene. And those types of projects just lend well to going and doing those types of events. And I really enjoy doing those events. I would love to see, at some point, myself back in that world on something new. It would be great. But in the meantime, I’m more working along dramatic lines. And comedic lines. I got a comedic series that I’ve developed right now that has a great cast attached to it. Beside myself, Brian Austin Green from 90210, David Faustin from Married… with Children, and Jason London, and Ernie Reyes Jr., Vanessa Angel. I have all these cast attachments now. I wanted to do, like, a 90s kind of throwback cast, you know, Gen X cast for it. It’s kind of, like, The Office meets Vice Principals. I won’t tell you where it’s set because if I tell you where it’s set someone’s gonna steal it from me because it’s just too genius. But it’s very funny and we have some decent headway on that right now. I got some meetings coming up with some production companies out in LA, and we’re in the fundraising phase as well. It’s going slower than I’d like but we have some interesting connections in that department as well.

David Read:
Good for you, man. That’s great. I have about three or four fan questions. I know we’re running long. Can I ask them real quick?

Corin Nemec:
Go for it, man. I got nothing but time.

David Read:
OK. I appreciate it. Dan Ben wanted to know, “Was there anything in Fallout that got cut, that didn’t make it?” I loved this episode, and I thought it was like a quieter character piece, like a submarine character piece, even though we’ve literally fate of the world in our hands here.

Corin Nemec:
Not much. The whole scriptwriting team over there, the writer producers over there, they have it down to an absolute science. When you’re talking about stuff ending up on the editing room floor, you’re, like, one or two lines here and there, too long of an entrance, too long of an exit. You’re talking about just squeezing the air out of scenes. You’re not talking about losing entire scenes. I don’t think that we ever lost an entire scene in any episode that I shot of Stargate. They got the page count down to, you know, an absolute science.

David Read:
“Was there any input,” Dan asked separately, “about Jonas’ appearance when he came back?” That you wanted to change or evolve. His hair looked cooler.

Corin Nemec:
I don’t know about the hair. It was one of those things. I didn’t wanna slick my hair back again like in the last season of episode 5 [sic!]. Also, he’s been away from his home planet for a while and then the wardrobe that they had the characters in was kind of a different feel than the way that the characters were dressed on my home planet before. It was a little bit more disco.

David Read:
They had interacted with Earth now and who knows what they took away.

Corin Nemec:
And my manager was just totally on my… My manager and agent for that matter, but more my manager, just did not want me cutting my hair again at that point because there was some other roles that I was up for, some other things going on. And he thought that I had more flexibility with longer hair than just going with the short, cropped military do that I really wanted to have for Jonas when he’s fitting in with the team, and fitting in with the whole military kind of vibe that he was living in, and wanting to make that be comfortable in that world. And so, at the end of the day there weren’t too many options outside of the Beatles bangs.

David Read:
Lockwatcher… Go ahead.

Corin Nemec:
And then it was odd because the actress opposite me had the exact the same hairdo.

David Read:
Right? Exactly.

Corin Nemec:
I was, like… We were looking at each other in the makeup room just, like, “What’s going on here? I guess this is the trend on Langara.”

David Read:
There you go.

Corin Nemec:
“This is the Kelowna do.”

David Read:
Lockwatcher, “Was there anything that surprised you or that you were, like, ‘Yes, we nailed that,’ when you saw the final cut?”

Corin Nemec:
Well, I would have to say the production design. That’s what they nailed. The sets that they built for Stargate is one of my… Again, my dad being a production designer, I pay attention to these things. And it helps to really, really make the world very real, like, we were talking about the episode Frozen. The way that they did design that stage. They brought in all these heavy A/C units that made the whole entire set, like… It was, like, 38 degrees on the set. And everybody is wearing parkas and you can see your actual breath. Because they wanted to make it as cold as it should be, so they didn’t have to add fake steam coming out of the mouth or whatever when you’re talking. But that attention to detail, as an actor, it just brings the whole world to life. So, the sets that they built for our episode there that we were just talking about, it was… I was there. I can’t believe that this came somewhat out of my mind. All the dialogue and everything didn’t but the world and what we were going through all did. And to be surrounded by it with all that physical mass, it’s extraordinary. Again, the production design on Stargate was par excellence. It was just as good as you would have on any major feature film with a ton of money behind it. It was incredible working on that show.

David Read:
I think that you probably are owed more than you think. I don’t know how much you know about SGU. Stargate Universe. But the driving force of a big chunk of that plot are naquadria planets in the Milky Way that are just ticking time bombs, and they have that features in the pilot, and it explodes much like Langara was gonna explode. And again…

Corin Nemec:
I think it did explode eventually in one of their movies.

David Read:
Langara didn’t but… And then they have another exploding naquadria planet at the end of Season One. So, there was a lot of that that was born out of that idea that they used later on because it’s a power source.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah.

David Read:
Peace Rider, this is the last question for you, “Were there ever any murmurs after Season Seven about bringing you back any further?”

Corin Nemec:
I wish. I really wish, especially when they were doing the Stargate movies and stuff. I know I did a bit in the Stargate video game but…

David Read:
It got cancelled.

Corin Nemec:
Yes. That’s too bad. Maybe it’ll come back. Who knows? I would have loved it. There was initially murmurings of Jonas Quinn going on to Atlantis and for whatever reason that got scrapped. I don’t know the ins and outs of it but I really would have loved to have had that character kind of come and go in those different worlds, those different universes. There was plenty of room available for Jonas Quinn to pop his head up instead of eating a banana.

David Read:
No oranges.

Corin Nemec:
No, no oranges. Oranges are way too distracting. But not, unfortunately that just didn’t manifest. But you never know.

David Read:
You had a good run, dude.

Corin Nemec:
Yeah, exactly.

David Read:
Linda?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed talking about character building and getting the chance to chat with you has been really wonderful. I still have tons more questions, but I think we’ve kind of run out of time.

Corin Nemec:
It’s no problem. You can ask me some that you’re dying for and then I’ll grab the pooch off the rug.

David Read:
Oh, the dog, yeah.

Corin Nemec:
And show him to the crowd.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
OK. That’s my question. Let’s see your dog because I love pets.

Corin Nemec:
Let me get him. Hold on one second.

David Read:
He’s all over social.

David Read:
There’s snoots.

Corin Nemec:
There we are.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Hello, sweetheart.

David Read:
He’s bigger than I expected. That’s a big corgi.

Corin Nemec:
Actually, he’s kind of small for his size.

David Read:
Oh, is he?

Corin Nemec:
Yeah. He’s only 28 pounds. He’s a wonderful… Theodore Corgivelt. The “Ruff Ruff Rider.”

David Read:
Is this your first dog?

Corin Nemec:
No. I normally have… I’ve only had labradors previous to this guy, but I don’t know if I can ever go back. I’ve always had this obsession with corgis, but I never owned one. And he is just a magical part of… Look at that face. Who can say no to this guy?

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
That’s beautiful.

David Read:
Absolutely not.

Corin Nemec:
He’s just a gorgeous fella.

David Read:
Life is better with dogs. They’re the best people. We don’t deserve them.

Corin Nemec:
I know. It’s true.

David Read:
And he’s got quite a presence on social media.

Corin Nemec:
He’s a great guy. He’s got the cutest sploot you ever saw in your life.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
The camera loves him. Look at that.

David Read:
Corin, I really feel like we’ve had the second half of a conversation that, really, you started last year. And it’s been wonderful to have you on to dig a little bit deeper into the process. And I can tell you from one creative person to another, you’ve really gotten my wheels turning about more that I wanna hear from the people who have come on the show, others like you yourself, who are… I wanna ask about the creative process and about dissecting and bringing to life these things that we just see, “Oh, well, it’s just words on a page.” It’s more than words on a page. There is life there and there is truth there. You just have to find it.

Corin Nemec:
Absolutely. I probably… With the Creating a Character for the Stage or Life, I’ve been planning on doing it for a while now, but I was gonna do a chapter by chapter on my YouTube, which… I will eventually do this in the near, near future. And I’m just gonna go through one chapter at a time per episode, read it, and then expand on it, and then do that chapter by chapter all the way through. So, eventually I will do that.

David Read:
Well, we’re gonna be here for it.

Corin Nemec:
Excellent.

David Read:
Thank you, my friend. And thank you, Linda.

Linda “GateGabber” Fury:
Any time.

Corin Nemec:
Thank you both of you. It’s wonderful to see you all.

David Read:
Good to see you guys. I’m gonna wrap up the show on this side.

Corin Nemec:
All right, David.

David Read:
Be well. [inaudible] Sorry guys, I muted my own microphone. Linda Fury, producer of Dial the Gate and Corin Nemec, Jonas Quinn in Stargate SG-1. And if you have not seen his performance as Harold in The Stand, you’re missing out. Go and check it out. It is finally available in glorious HD. My tremendous thanks to my moderating team. You guys make this possible. Anthony, Jeremy, Marsha, Summer, Tracy, Raj, Lockwatcher, and Kevin. My producer, Linda, again, “GateGabber” Fury. My webmaster, Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb who keeps dialthegate.com up and running. And if you enjoyed the episode, give us a Like. We really appreciate it. It helps the channel grow. We have Dean Marshall coming up in just around 17 minutes. Sergeant Bates in Stargate: Atlantis. We’re gonna be speaking with him momentarily. I appreciate you tuning in and thanks again to Corin Nemec. We will see you on the other side.