Jill Teed, “Yolanda Reese” / “Stacey Monroe,” joins Dial the Gate to talk her career and explore SG-1’s most wild meta-narrative as the show-within-a-show!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 335 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Welcome to The Stargate Oral History Project. I have Jill Teed joining us for this episode. She portrayed Yolanda Reese, portraying the character of Stacy Monroe in “Wormhole X-Treme!,” based on the character of Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1, played by the actor Amanda Tapping, who was not in the feature film. How are we doing, Jill?

Jill Teed:
We’re doing great, David. How about yourself?

David Read:
I am well, and your lake back there is absolutely magnificent.

Jill Teed:
That ain’t a lake. That’s the ocean.

David Read:
It’s the ocean.

Jill Teed:
Can we move this towel so that–

David Read:
There was no towel a moment ago and now there’s a towel.

Jill Teed:
Our friend is on board and he’s trying to sabotage. He’s a saboteur.

David Read:
Gosh.

Jill Teed:
OK, and be careful your bits don’t fall over the shorts there. There’s probably kids. There’s probably minors aboard.

David Read:
You’re all good.

Jill Teed:
There we go.

David Read:
Perfect. It’s a great view. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. It means a lot to me to have you. You know what? Let me set that aside. I wanna bring up Battlestar Galactica in a little bit here. I wanna dive right into this from the top. When you were going to be in Stargate SG-1, this was going to be the 100th episode of the series, and I’m gonna come back around to your personal stuff in a second. They’re telling you, “OK, we don’t want you in the show per se, we want you to be in the show within the show.” When you saw this character, it’s like, “What is this?” How meta are we going here in this? Was it confusing at all? Or did it make sense? “Oh, they’re parodying themselves. It’s the 100th.”

Jill Teed:
No, it made total sense. I don’t know if now would be the time to bring it up, but I must have read for the show, David, it got annoying how many times I read for it. I actually read for Amanda’s role as well, and was in the mix for that, and then I later found out that, I can’t remember who it is, but somebody knew her, and that was it. The role was written for her. I read for Stargate so many times, and I always knew I wasn’t quite right. Even at that stage in my career, I would look at it and it was Princess Leeky Leeky from whatever. You guys fill in blanks ’cause I’m sure y’all know every single episode and all the characters, but Jackie Samuda would get it, or the girls that could play princess more than I do, or that kind of thing. I literally got so sick of reading for it and not booking, which happens with some shows. They obviously like you and they’re trying to find a place for you, and when the 100th came out, I got the sides, I looked at the audition, I was like, “OK, this is the one.”

David Read:
You knew. You felt it.

Jill Teed:
Yeah, I did. I know Amanda, she’s a friend of mine. I just think that our vibes are pretty similar, and I think that was important, because the other characters, it was all the same. Everybody had a little bit of similarity to the characters we were parodying.

David Read:
This is not just because you said that earlier, but you could’ve played Samantha Carter. It makes sense on all kinds of levels, just watching you as a performer and your body of work, but you could’ve totally pulled that off. So it makes sense they selected someone who had auditioned for the role to play her meta counterpart. So there’s a cool symmetry there.

Jill Teed:
Yes, very much so, and also, kind of a punch in the head. You know what I mean? It’s like, “Oh, we didn’t give you the one that’s gonna make you buy the waterfront mansion. We’re gonna give you the other job. So you can be friends with Amanda and go to her waterfront mansion and suck an egg.” No, it’s funny. Listen, as an actor, you seem surprised when I said that, but sometimes I look at something and I go, “Oh, yeah. They’d be crazy not to give me the job,” and sometimes they don’t and sometimes they do, but in that case, it felt pretty right.

David Read:
When did you know that this was gonna be a career for you? How old were you? Was it an early dream of yours to become an actor? Or was this something that came to you relatively later on in your upbringing? I’m curious. I always love to ask this question when I can ’cause it kind of paints the road map for what follows in the person’s life.

Jill Teed:
Yeah. So I grew up in a very small town on the East Coast of Canada, like 5,000 people.

David Read:
Me too. Totally relate. Everyone knows everyone else’s dirt.

Jill Teed:
Everyone knows everyone and my dad was one of the town doctors. My mom was a nurse until she started babyfying, and I wanted to be an actress and a singer from a very early age.

David Read:
So no career in medicine for you?

Jill Teed:
Nah, but I can skip ahead to that in a second, but for my mom especially, I did everything I could. I was in drama in high school, in the club, in the local community theater. I did whatever I could do with that, with the limited resources and the limited support, because my mother was like, “You can’t do that. You’ll never do that.” And I’m pretty stubborn, but I did go to uni and I tried to go down a different path that might give me something to fall back on. Then it wasn’t until I moved to Paris in my early 20s for just under a year, and it was still this, “How am I gonna do it?” My girlfriend was dating a guy at the time. His name was Xavier Deluc, and at the time he was quite a big French movie star. And he and I had this discussion and he set me up with a meeting with his agent, and I had no experience whatsoever. She said, “Do you have a CV? Do you have a demo reel?” And I was like, “Yeah, I left all that back in Canada.”

David Read:
Good for you.

Jill Teed:
She knew I was full of it, but anyway, she did send me on a couple of auditions, and one of them was a commercial for the product Studio. It’s a hair care– Do you know the Studio Line? Studio Line by L’Oreal.

David Read:
I’m sure I’ve come across it.

Jill Teed:
It’s a L’Oreal product. Anyway, so I went to the audition. Some of the modeling people were trying to get me into that in Paris, and that’s a whole yuck. So, I went to the audition for this hair care, and at the time my hair was virgin hair and it was long and quite glorious, I must say. And the director was a male, not bad-looking guy. But he said, “Do some twirls, and flip your hair around,” and do all that kind of stuff. And then he asked me in French, “What do you have on under your clothes?” And I said, “Underpants.” And he wanted me to take my clothes off to continue doing the twirls and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to France, but frequently they’re naked. They’re naked on TV all the time. They’ll sit at the coffee shop naked. It makes no sense, but I said, “No, thanks.”

David Read:
And I’m losing her right at– Oh no. Starlink, don’t fail us now. Jill, can you hear us?

Jill Teed:
Yeah, I can hear you.

David Read:
I lost you. You said, “I said, ‘No, thanks.'” Can you pick up there?

Jill Teed:
Yeah, I said, “No, thanks.” But the combination of that experience, ’cause it felt a little bit ballsy, going to these auditions and having no clue, that and the combination of Xavier kind of pushing me into it, and then I came back to Canada and sent out my picture, got that all done. So, I was in my early 20s when I started professionally.

David Read:
I can certainly think of experiences in my own life where I’ve tested the waters and found myself in the wrong exact spot, but otherwise, in terms of what I wanna do, I’m ready to go. I just have to find the right spot. And in France, where many of them have no modesty, that would make sense in that culture in some cases, but over here, it’s like, “No.” I’m glad that you found your voice in a culture where things were different, and that you didn’t say, “Ah, what the heck?” No, you had a feeling about how this was going to go, and you’re like, “No, I’m not gonna do that. If I was French, maybe that would be different, but this is how I feel.” And good for you.

Jill Teed:
No, and I honestly think that that experience, and then another experience when I was pregnant with my first daughter, who’s 34 now. I was reading for, again, another show, 21 Jump Street. I was reading for a character, or I was supposed to read for it. I was running through Central Park, and I get surrounded by a gang of men, and attacked, and assaulted. That’s the audition piece. I’m pregnant, but I’m not showing yet. I’m outside the room getting ready and I’m apoplectic at this point. I was so hormonal and I probably would’ve booked the job. But casting director Michelle opened the door, she took one look at me, I was like, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.” She said, “Are you okay?” I said, “I’m pregnant.” She said, “Go home. No, you’re not doing this.”

David Read:
It didn’t hit you until you were there.

Jill Teed:
Didn’t hit me. My body told me. I am a big believer in listening very carefully to your body. It tells us everything we need to know. But I still was like, “I have to go,” and, “I gotta get the job.” And I went home, and those two experiences really shaped me as a performer. It helped me make boundaries. I’m not a victim of violence in the choking, rapey, stabby kinda stuff. I’ve done Mission to Mars. My head got blown up with a rock. That’s different.

David Read:
Not the same thing at all.

Jill Teed:
Not the same.

David Read:
I totally get it now. The dying. But this is–

Jill Teed:
The rock might have been a male rock, but I know…

David Read:
You can push your body into doing certain things, but at what cost? When it says, “I’m gonna be optimal here.” I think it was, oh gosh. Come on, help me, brain, who it was. But I can’t think of it right now, but it’s one of the actors who I’ve had on. It was, “I’m a French horn. I’m in the brass section. This is what I’m good at. This is what I do. When I see parts that are brass section related, so to speak–” Awww. Who is this?

Jill Teed:
This is the scene stealer. This is the focus puller.

David Read:
What is your name?

Jill Teed:
His name is Finn, and he’s a very good boy.

David Read:
Aw, it’s Finn. What a good boy.

Jill Teed:
He’s a really good boy. Anyway, story, the French horn–

David Read:
But to have an actor know your skills, to know what group of parts you’re built for. Sure, you can step outside every once in a while, into other things. But to really know what you’re good at, first and foremost, I think is a positive trait. And what you’re interested in pursuing.

Jill Teed:
It does help. And that’s why, really, now, David and everyone, I really enjoy mentoring. I coach and I work with– It seems that I am best at working with adolescents up to, and into the 20s and whatnot. I have older clients too, but that’s the age group that– In my classes, or when I’m working with people, it’s like, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, that you’re not comfortable doing, i.e.–” In fact, one of my clients just booked a job. It’s finished now. It’s airing sort of in two parts right now. She’s 18 now. Started working with her when she was 13. She got to set… She’s the lead. She’s the number one in this polygamist cult movie based on a true story. And she gets there and they’re like, “OK, we’re gonna– This scene, when we get to this scene–” There were a couple of much older men that were gonna be having these kind of love scenes and everything. And she phoned me. She was freaking out. And I said, “Where is your intimacy coordinator?” And that’s a role now. Thank heavens they have someone on board. Even if it’s just a hug, if it’s anything.

David Read:
No, if the talent wants it, they should be there. It’s a separate conversation if they don’t want them involved for something. They need to be available to them if the talent wants it.

Jill Teed:
Yes. And that was one of those, “Oh, yeah. We’ll have them.” But then suddenly she’s there, and I said, “No, no, no. Get the agent, get the manager.”

David Read:
That’s correct.

Jill Teed:
Da, da, da, da, da. And then in comes the intimacy coordinator. And helped her get through these scenes.

David Read:
It’s all about boundaries. Making clear what everyone is gonna do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. On the screen, it can look spontaneous. But you figure everything out beforehand. Everyone’s gonna know me saying this, there are few jobs more important than teaching, and I’m thrilled that you do it, and I can totally tell from your personality that it would completely work.

Jill Teed:
I really enjoy it.

David Read:
Is there a role, Jill, that you have had a chance to play that affected you in ways that you didn’t expect or that you’ve carried with you across your life or a period of time, that influenced you in ways that you didn’t predict? Is there an experience that you can share?

Jill Teed:
People’s questions are always like, “Oh, what’s your favorite?” And they expect me to say, oh, the big features that I’ve worked on, for example. Meeting Hugh Jackman was pretty nice in X-Men. That was pretty nice, meeting the old Hugh Jackman guy. I was such a geek around him, though. I was so insecure. I was such a loser. “Where are you from?” He’s like, “I’m from Sydney.” I’m like, “Oh, Sydney, cool. Is Sydney’s a nice town?” I was such a dork, honestly, and I don’t get starstruck at all.

David Read:
It happens when you least expect it.

Jill Teed:
It wasn’t that I was even starstruck so much, it was, “He’s a fucking smoke show, you guys. He’s hot and tall and manly.” And I had just had a baby, so I was, “Oh, little, like heh.” Anyway, to this day, honestly, one of my favorite, and I don’t know if anybody’s ever seen it, but it was an episode of The Outer Limits called “What Will The Neighbors Think?” We were given such freedom, and this was all during the time of X-Files and then X-Files acting, so we were– Everyone, you go to an audition and you do nothing. You do absolutely– That’s the one. And that–

David Read:
Directed by Helen Shaver.

Jill Teed:
Afterwards, when we were all on set and it was basically– Have you seen that, David?

David Read:
I have, but it’s been a while, so it would have been when it ran.

Jill Teed:
My character was Tory Beth, Queen of Rage, part bile, part jaundice, and there were the archetypes, I guess that’s the right word. But you had your jock, you had your greaser. Helen just let us go crazy, and it was over the top, and God, was it fun because this whole– The X-Files, obviously, a massively huge hit. But it really caught on, that style, where everybody was supposed to be really contained and everything. And I appreciate that. When you see really good acting and it’s all coming from here, and you can read their mind basically, it’s so good. But sometimes it’s fun to let it rip, and that show was a blast.

David Read:
You don’t always have to be subdued to get your point across. And I’m glad that Helen was brave enough to say, “This one, it’s balls to the walls, man. Here we go.”

Jill Teed:
It was.

David Read:
“We’re gonna take you on a ride.” I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch the episode ’cause I watched them all. It was great. Another Bridge Studios production.

Jill Teed:
So, now I look back at that and go, “Oh, it’s so dated now and everything,” but each day I’d sit in hair and makeup and she’d go, “OK, what are we doing today?” and all these crazy wigs. We had such freedom. I did a movie last summer that was really fun. It aired in the States. It’s one of these Lifetime or whatever things, but-

David Read:
Is it Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini?

Jill Teed:
No. That was an interesting experience too.

David Read:
Didn’t mean to derail you, sorry.

Jill Teed:
No, that’s OK. That was interesting. Jaime was an interesting girl. I like her a lot. She was interesting. What was it called? It came out as The Last Thing She Said.

David Read:
The Last Thing She Said, OK.

Jill Teed:
It might be called Swept Under the Rug. They changed it. It was a working title in the United States first.

David Read:
I see.

Jill Teed:
So, that was actually a different role for me because I was the psycho. I’m the single mom with the kid that has never left home and he’s kinda weird, and he’s very weird, and never gonna get a girlfriend, and I want me a grandbaby some bad, so we kidnap this woman and trap her in the basement and chain her to the bed and I’m gonna take the container in the room, son, and do what you’re supposed to do so I can get it inside the girl. I’ve never done that kind of character before. It was a blast, actually. It was really fun.

David Read:
There’s something to be said for playing characters so, A, so extremely outside of yourself, but B, “What? They want me to do what? How will this play? Will people even buy this?”

Jill Teed:
You’re assuming that being psychotic is very outside of my–

David Read:
I am assuming. This is true.

Jill Teed:
Ha!

David Read:
This is most definitely true.

Jill Teed:
I have two people around here right now who are like, “No, not so far off.” But no, it’s because I’ve always done these, the astronaut and the Navy SEAL and that kind, and the kinda in-charge lady. The older I get, funny enough, I thought when I was 30, “OK, that’s it.” Then I’m like, “OK, now I’m 40. OK, now that’s really it.” And then the characters are getting more interesting. Or maybe it’s that I approach it differently and want to find more layers and more levels and whatnot in the work.

David Read:
Or maybe people are …

Jill Teed:
Or both.

David Read:
… discovering your layers as you present them through the work that you’re doing. There’s some of that, too.

Jill Teed:
Certainly when I was in my sort of 20s and 30s, I felt a little bit …

David Read:
Typecast?

Jill Teed:
… a little bit typecast, I guess, the detective and the cop and stuff like that.

David Read:
You present yourself as sure of yourself. I’m gonna tell you, probably my favorite role of yours is from Battlestar Galactica. Sergeant Hadrian.

Jill Teed:
That’s funny.

David Read:
I loved this character because the thing that I love about good sci-fi is, it’s not right versus wrong, it’s right versus right, or wrong versus wrong. There are no good choices. And in the first season, there was a couple of episodes that featured it.

Jill Teed:
Say that again. I liked that. I liked that, say that again.

David Read:
When sci-fi and good story present us with a problem, it’s not always right versus wrong. Very often it’s right versus right, or wrong versus wrong, when there are no good choices. And there was an episode of Battlestar called Litmus, which presented this. Where Commander Adama, played by the inestimable Edward James Olmos calls this– Was she the sergeant at arms? She was basically the one to investigate an incident that happened aboard the ship.

Jill Teed:
That’s right. An airlock was left open.

David Read:
That’s right, and led to something happening. And it goes into a tribunal where she’s basically running the show, your character, Sergeant Hadrian. They just take it from one level to the next, where we’re suddenly in a situation where–

Jill Teed:
Oh, get him to stop. Sorry. Finn. Finn. Arrête.

David Read:
You’re doing the right thing. You’re following chain of command and procedure. But Adama doesn’t like where it’s going. And he puts a stop to it. Hold on just a second here, what we’re trying to do, your character’s trying to solve this problem. And as Michelle Forbes’ character, Admiral Cain, says the second season, “You quit it because you didn’t like the verdict.” Whoa, OK. In this situation you’ve got a civilization that’s almost extinct and you’ve got one guy calling the shots and he’s thinking about humanity, where your character’s perspective is thinking about this specific situation and right versus wrong. It’s a great drama. It’s a great use of character and two people who are absolutely in the right, but you have an impasse. And that’s great science fiction.

Jill Teed:
I love that. I haven’t actually never heard it put that way.

David Read:
Thank you.

Jill Teed:
Yes, I like that a lot. That was another interesting time, and so often I went on the set of iZombie and everybody’s like, “Oh, I loved your performance in Battlestar Galactica.” I’m like, “I have some other credits.”

David Read:
I’m sorry.

Jill Teed:
No, no, no. I did go through that– And it’s just interesting to hear your perspective and to hear people and why they… The show was a huge hit, obviously. What was I gonna say? At the time that I did that, I had just finished a one-woman show, a theater piece called Miss Margarida’s Way. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

David Read:
I’m not. Tell me a little bit about it.

Jill Teed:
It’s an hour and 45-minute-long one-woman piece, which is terrifying. It actually is terrifying. You don’t have anybody else on the stage to catch you if you fall or to, “What, don’t you want the Kleenex box?” Or whatever to help you get back. It was full of non sequiturs. It was written by a Brazilian called Roberto Athayde during the time of Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, and there was a lot of dictatorships happening in South America at that time. So, this piece was told through the voice of a grade eight school teacher. Grade eight, because that’s the time when the hormones start kicking in. It was interactive with the audience, and they’re my students.

David Read:
Wow, so you’re experiencing them in the room like they’re there, because they are.

Jill Teed:
Yeah.

David Read:
That’s cool, OK.

Jill Teed:
So, the fourth wall was broken. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Larry Moss.

David Read:
Name rings a bell.

Jill Teed:
The acting teacher. Hilary Swank thanked him during her Oscar speech for Boys Don’t Cry. He’s from LA. He went through a huge time when everybody was like, “Larry Moss, Larry–” And he would come to Vancouver and we would do his classes, and I did his class, and he was the one that recommended that piece to me. And I was pregnant again with my second child at the time, and I bought the play and I read the play when I was pregnant. I was like, “What the hell is this play about?” It’s a crazy play, it really is, and it’s a metaphor for politics, for political regimes, for that sort of control. But if you think about someone like, I don’t wanna say his name, let’s say Saddam Hussein or any fascist, any dictator. There’s obviously the control piece and the power piece, but there’s also this kind of seduction and the narcissism and wanting the adoration and wanting the love. So, it was like that. So, by turns, the character is one minute, “I will love you and I will take care of you,” and that kinda thing, and then the next minute she goes completely off, and it was a very challenging piece and an hour and 45 minutes.

David Read:
So, you run the gamut.

Jill Teed:
Yeah. So, I started learning the lines a couple weeks after my son was born, and I thought it was a great way to sort of work on the baby brain. ‘Cause you just kinda get a little bit mushy in the head. So, I started working the lines, and I gave myself 20 minutes a day. Minimum 20 minutes a day. And start chipping away at this piece. All that to say is I had just wrapped the show and a lot of talking, and I was really tired of my sound of my own voice, and then I booked Battlestar Galactica. And wasn’t that a lot of me talking? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I was like, “God…”

David Read:
Here we go again.

Jill Teed:
“Somebody shut me up.”

David Read:
Thank you, Starlink. Wait for her to come back.

Jill Teed:
They’re good to work on, I must say. The crew is all really solid, everybody likes what they’re doing.

David Read:
So, let’s go back to Stargate. You’ve booked “Wormhole X-Treme!” It’s the 100th episode. Tell me about getting into this character. How do you get into a character that’s a character, if that makes any sense. Does that make sense? You’re playing an actor playing a character. At a certain point, you’re playing both of them. She has a little thing for Jack, of course, because they’re gonna lean into that. How you doing? ‘Cause Sam does, on one level or another. Tell me about that role, the role itself.

Jill Teed:
So, in order to try and help us prepare, we got tapes; I was to watch Amanda doing her thing. Are you guys gonna cut me off if I say I really didn’t watch the show?

David Read:
It’s all right.

Jill Teed:
I didn’t. I don’t really watch TV that much.

David Read:
You sure nailed it.

Jill Teed:
I studied her as much as I could and then brought my own ideas to the table, and then play off the other actors. They were great, what’s his face–

David Read:
So, you had Michael DeLuise.

Jill Teed:
DeLuise, he’s great.

David Read:
Christian Bocher.

Jill Teed:
Christian.

David Read:
Herbert Duncanson.

Jill Teed:
Herbert Duncanson, yeah.

David Read:
That’s it, I got him.

Jill Teed:
It was great. That was so much fun. And again, you guys are gonna think I have 100 children. I only have two. Again, I was pregnant with my son, not showing yet, early days. We’re doing all this, we’re doing our own stunts where we’re diving through the Stargate and landing on the pads and stuff like that. And I’m thinking, “Oh, I hope this baby survives this job.” We had a hoot. It was breaking the fourth wall again and turning the camera around on the crew and everyone in the movie. It was great. It was lots of fun.

David Read:
So, it was never irritating, “OK, these foam rocks, they’re not even trying.” Or was it really accepting …

Jill Teed:
No, that was–

David Read:
… the fact that this is the point, we really are going there. Let’s make it as 1960s shoestring-budget cornball as possible.

Jill Teed:
I thought that was brilliant.

David Read:
And sincere. It’s not joking about it. It’s joking about it with the people who love it.

Jill Teed:
That’s right. No, it was great. It was great. That was definitely one of my favorite shows. I wanna do more comedy, actually. Recently I’ve had a couple of auditions for comedic stuff. And I’d like to head more in that direction. For sure. It’s a lot of fun.

David Read:
You’ve got it, sister.

Jill Teed:
It’s harder. It’s fun.

David Read:
You gotta stretch yourself in some ways, and we need comedy more than ever. I’m telling ya. I’m remembering… Dang it. It’s in a box downstairs, but I got Season Five of–

Jill Teed:
God, is it a person?

David Read:
No.

Jill Teed:
Please say no.

David Read:
No. At least not in that box. There’s an episode on Dial the Gate of me going through the Stargate trading cards, and you guys got your own. For Season Five, one of the subsets in the Season Five trading card deck is a “Wormhole X-Treme!” deck where you guys all got to do your autographs. And it was an addendum to the normal signed autographs in these packs where they’re like, “You know what? We’re just gonna pretend for this season that it’s a real show.” And they went all out. There’s a section in there of those cards. It’s one of the prides of my Stargate collection. Who gets to do that?

Jill Teed:
Seriously? I really liked doing that, actually. My daughter actually just told me the other day, her husband is a sci-fi guy and he loves all that stuff. And he’s like, “Why don’t you do more conventions?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” I’m not very good at sorta self-promotion. I’m not. And if I hear of one or somebody asks me to do it, I’ll be like, “Sure.” ‘Cause I enjoy it. I enjoy meeting the fans. I really do. I’ll never forget the very first one I did. It was in London, England. Teryl was working with, what was his name? Richard? I wanna say Richard. She was helping coordinate. She was at every single one of them.

David Read:
Was this Richard Pasco?

Jill Teed:
Yeah.

David Read:
Was this Gatecon London?

Jill Teed:
Yeah.

David Read:
They did a London one.

Jill Teed:
There was a boy in line to come and talk to me, get an autograph and stuff. I’m pretty down to earth. I go, “Eh. We’re all in this together, and we all–”

David Read:
We’re all just meat bags.

Jill Teed:
“We’re all gonna corro– We’re all just meat puppets.” But he was, I’m gonna say, about 14. And kinda gawky, braces and all that stuff. And he came to my table and he was– I know. It actually made me cry. It was so sweet. And I got up and I hugged him. And he was like the frozen stick body–

David Read:
You threw him for a loop.

Jill Teed:
“Oh, come on. What do you want? Let’s go. What do you want here?” Anyway, my daughter’s husband decided he wants to manage me and take me to do these conventions and stuff. I don’t know if people are still doing–

David Read:
Jill, there’s a Stargate convention a couple of times a year. I would love to see you at more of ’em. And only do the ones that you want. They just had one in Germany. Sam Jones just did one, and he had one episode, as Aris Boch.

Jill Teed:
How do I do it? I don’t even know how to do it.

David Read:
You have to keep your ear to the ground with what’s going on. I can–

Jill Teed:
I’m really bad at that.

David Read:
Let me stay in touch with you.

Jill Teed:
Maybe I’ll … OK.

David Read:
If you want me to connect with him, I can. I have my ear to the ground with the convention circuit, so we can definitely make that happen. And you can do them or not do them. And, you know what? They’re always happening. I mean, geez, we’re almost at 30 years at this point. They’re really not going away right now. But that’s great. I’m glad to hear it because there are more and more Stargate fans being born as this thing is now on streaming. You’ve got three generations, almost four, of fans watching this thing now.

Jill Teed:
Wow. How many people are there?

David Read:
Right now?

Jill Teed:
Yeah.

David Read:
You’ve got 45 watching.

Jill Teed:
45,000. It better be 45,000, David.

David Read:
Give me some time.

Jill Teed:
OK. How many does Amanda get?

David Read:
I’ve not had Amanda on. I can’t get her.

Jill Teed:
Oh, come on.

David Read:
But my record I think was almost 5,000 for Cliff Simon’s memorial.

Jill Teed:
No.

David Read:
And that was for someone who wasn’t even with us anymore.

Jill Teed:
They had 5,000 for a dead guy and I got 45. I appreciate y’all there. I do.

David Read:
That’s just the people who are live watching with us now, but there will be more later on because it stays online. Did you have any idea that, oh my God, they’re calling me back five years later? They’re doing the 200th and they wanna do it again.

Jill Teed:
I know. It was much different, obviously.

David Read:
Yeah?

Jill Teed:
Yeah. It was, I wanna say, one day. Quick and dirty. It wasn’t the same at all. I just go, “Yeah, I did the 100th. Yeah, I did the 200th too, didn’t I?” Oh, well. It was OK.

David Read:
A pop-in.

Jill Teed:
Yeah. It was a pop-in. Exactly. But that first London Gatecon thing was so cute because I was a surprise. As a matter of fact, it was Steve Basic. Steve Basic was going, and we worked out at the same gym and he said, “Yeah, I’m going over to do this thing.” And I said, “What do you mean?” Anyway, it was a couple of days away and he said, “I’ll give you the guy’s contact.” So, I don’t know if email was even a thing then.

David Read:
Yes.

Jill Teed:
I might have sent a carrier pigeon with a message to Richard, and it happened pretty quickly, and he booked me on the flight, dah, dah, dah. I was the surprise guest at that thing.

David Read:
That’s great.

Jill Teed:
Which was fun. But what was really cute its that there was four people who were dressed up as the “Wormhole X-Treme!” gang. So the girl found the wig online that kinda looked like my hair. It was so funny. It was very cute.

David Read:
People can get into it. I don’t know if you know, but Dial the Gate’s sister channel is a re-watch channel, and it is called The Wormhole X-Tremists.

Jill Teed:
Say that again?

David Read:
The Wormhole X-Tremists.

Jill Teed:
No, just fill in the blanks before, because I was–

David Read:
Dial the Gate’s sister channel is a re-watch channel and it’s called The Wormhole X-Tremists. There’s three of us, and so that’s what we call ourselves.

Jill Teed:
Fun, cute.

David Read:
It’s a joke within a joke.

Jill Teed:
I love the joke within the joke, David. Clever.

David Read:
I’ve got a few fan questions for you, if you have a little bit more time?

Jill Teed:
Yeah, sure.

David Read:
Raj Luthra, we already covered this, but I’m curious to see if you have anything to say further based on our conversation. He said, “In ‘Wormhole X-Treme!’ what was it like juxtaposing two characters at the same time?” Or was it like just one version was very similar to the other?

Jill Teed:
Yeah, let’s go with that.

David Read:
Lockwatcher.

Jill Teed:
Does that answer your question, Raj?

David Read:
Yeah, sure.

Jill Teed:
Lockwatcher.

David Read:
Lockwatcher says, “How did working on a film like Mission to Mars compare to something like Stargate?”

Jill Teed:
Let’s see. Mission to Mars I booked and I had a picture deal on that, so they owned me for around six months, four months, something like that.

David Read:
I didn’t know that was still a thing.

Jill Teed:
I was unable to do anything else at the time, and there were many, many, many days where we would go to set and Brian De Palma would just change his mind about something and, “That doesn’t work. Change the whole thing.” And we would sit in our trailers and do nothing. For the amount of time that I was in that movie before the rock in the face, you wouldn’t believe how much work it was. Or how much work and also how much not work, sitting in a trailer, waiting for the crew to completely repaint or rebuild, that kind of thing.

David Read:
Film is a lot of sitting. In many cases.

Jill Teed:
In that case it was a ton of sitting. Those big features, it can be a lot of sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Whereas Stargate was, “Let’s go. Jill, you’re ready? OK, they’re ready for you, let’s go. Go, go, go, go, go, go.” Constant, ’cause we’re in almost every shot, and I think it was, I wanna say eight days. Monday to Friday, then a Monday to– They’re very different. It’s a very different experience shooting those big features. Big-budget features, like X-Men, X-Men 2, where there’s all the car explosions and all that kind of stuff. That takes a lot of time.

David Read:
Makes a lot of sense, especially with a team like Stargate. They’ve been together since MacGyver. They’re really on it, and they’re not gonna have a Brian De Palma coming in and saying, “You know what? I don’t like it.”

Jill Teed:
“Hey, get me another smoke. Assistant, get my ashtray. It’s full. Empty it.” Oh, my. Sorry. I shouldn’t say anything like that.

David Read:
No, nothing is out of bounds here.

Jill Teed:
No. He was-

David Read:
I’m mostly kidding. Krisztian wanted to know, what is it like working with John Rhys-Davies?

Jill Teed:
Wait. I have to look up who that is.

David Read:
He was in Indiana Jones as Sallah. He was Gimli in Lord of the Rings. He was in Sliders.

Jill Teed:
Did I work with him in Sliders?

David Read:
Is it Sliders? Let me see here. It probably would’ve been Sliders, The Weaker Sex. OK. So he was unremarkable? I didn’t watch him in Sliders.

Jill Teed:
I don’t remember.

David Read:
Sliders. It is Sliders, yep.

Jill Teed:
Did I actually work with him in that show?

David Read:
The chat is saying yes.

Jill Teed:
Sorry, you guys. It’s a long time ago.

David Read:
It’s all good. That’s a long time ago. If it doesn’t spawn a memory, that’s OK. We do a lot of sifting through memory here in this show. No, it’s all good.

Jill Teed:
If you ask me who are the actors that I remember and why do I remember them? I can say that. ‘Cause I’ve worked with a bunch of people. Like I said, mostly anybody that’s got a name? A big name? They’re generally really awesome.

David Read:
Legit awesome.

Jill Teed:
Respectful of the crew, they’re caring, they’re kind, they’re grateful, they’re gracious, generally speaking. It’s the ones that are– Once, Daddy was the producer of some big stuff, and his son was on this show, and he was insufferable. Nobody knew his name, but he wasn’t all those things that I said.

David Read:
You couldn’t flush that one down the toilet because someone’s protecting them.

Jill Teed:
God knows where he is now. But I saw him in the one thing, and I was like, “Oh my God, are you painful.”

David Read:
I know what that one feels like on the road, like a speed bump.

Jill Teed:
There’s no need for it. There’s just no need for it.

David Read:
You’re gonna get all kinds of different personalities. No matter what industry you’re in. Eventually you’re gonna go high up enough where you’re gonna find people who are kinda stuck. And everyone around ’em is kinda dealing with ’em. And again, they all have all the personality of a speed bump. You do what you can. Jill, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. I’d love to see you at more Stargate conventions. Anything that we should be on the lookout for in the near future? Anything going on? Are you open to more sci-fi?

Jill Teed:
Yeah, always. There’s not really much sci-fi done here anymore. I work in Canada. There was a stage where I thought, “Ooh, gonna go to the States and get the green card and do all that.” But it just didn’t happen. So, there’s not a ton of sci-fi here at the moment. But I’m open to anything. I’m up for a couple things. I can’t say anything about it right now, but they’re fun. It’s more along the comedic side of things.

David Read:
Comedic and sci-fi? Or just comedic?

Jill Teed:
No, more comedic. So, if Megan Mullally’s busy, maybe I can book something. I’m not even kidding. Sometimes I find out Megan Mullally got that part. Huh, maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad.

David Read:
Leah Remini, I read her book a few years ago, and she was also like, “Ugh, God, there’s Aniston. She’s got it, she’s got it.” There’s certain people that you are similar enough to that you keep on seeing at your auditions. One of the things that I’ve seen a lot with this show is, a lot of those people are friends. It’s like, “Hey, how you doing? If I don’t get it, I hope you do.”

Jill Teed:
Absolutely.

David Read:
‘Cause it’s a small group of people up there. Not as small as it once was during Stargate, don’t get me wrong.

Jill Teed:
Sadly since COVID we haven’t had in-person auditions for five years. One day I was gonna put something on Facebook, all these ladies, particularly ladies that I miss seeing. Angela Moore and Teryl Rothery and Venus Turzo and Catherine Lough and la-la-la. And I kept typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, typing, and suddenly I had this really long list of these fantastic women. We don’t see each other anymore.

David Read:
COVID atomized us.

Jill Teed:
Unless I have a separate friendship with somebody, which I do with some of them, but that’s a little bit sad. You have to get to set and hopefully there’s a few of us locals working on it, and it’s changed a lot.

David Read:
It’s great that they’ve cast a wider net with Zoom interviews and auditions. But at the same time, you have to be able to prove that you can take a note and pivot.

Jill Teed:
Actually, my friend that’s on board here today was working on a show and the number one didn’t know his lines. Embarrassingly so. So, he did his audition, he probably read his lines right from a cue card or whatever, and got to set and he said it was really bad.

David Read:
You’re in front of 100 people then.

Jill Teed:
Really bad.

David Read:
You’re not when you do the Zoom thing. Pre-tape it. You have to get your feet wet and get in with people. Otherwise it’s– I wonder if at some point they’re gonna sunset some of it, ’cause we like the extra bodies that we get in terms of being able to increase the breadth of the audition, but at the same time you need to have, like you said, the person-to-person interaction, the connecting with people, because that’s how you network. You can send an email to a couple of people, but you need to make eye contact with someone and say, “You know what? I was thinking about something and you would be perfect for it, and it didn’t hit me until you were right in front of me.”

Jill Teed:
At the same time, it has allowed me to come and do this. I go downstairs and do auditions and I FaceTime with one of my clients and she reads for me and I do– So, I can be anywhere. I was just in Italy, actually, for three weeks and did a couple of auditions over there and they have no idea where I am. I make it look– All they need is good, decent lighting and decent sound and I can read anywhere I want.

David Read:
Does the job.

Jill Teed:
So, that’s kinda nice. David, it was a real pleasure doing you.

David Read:
Really wonderful. I thank you for taking so much time with me.

Jill Teed:
I don’t know why I was nervous. I wasn’t. Yes I was.

David Read:
Just me?

Jill Teed:
Just a little bit nervous. I didn’t know. I didn’t know if it was gonna be the Zoom faces all coming at ya?

David Read:
No.

Jill Teed:
Popping up.

David Read:
I only do that to people I don’t like.

Jill Teed:
OK, thank you everybody for …

David Read:
Thank you.

Jill Teed:
… joining us and thank you, David. Keep in touch about any of the conventions.

David Read:
I’ll keep you in the loop. I’m gonna wrap up the show on this end, but you take care of yourself out there.

Jill Teed:
You too.

David Read:
Take care of the little one.

Jill Teed:
Will do.

David Read:
Bye-bye.

Jill Teed:
OK. Thank you. Bye.

David Read:
That was Jill Teed, who played Yolanda Reese and Stacy Monroe in Stargate SG-1’s “Wormhole X-Treme!” You know what? I don’t have my tie on. I feel like a chump. We had a previous Dial the Gate episode, and I was all comfortable for that and I didn’t put a tie on for her. I wanna let you know this episode is dedicated to Sabine Heinc, whose husband misses her greatly. Someone who is a part of Dial the Gate and has done some work for us. So, Sabine, this was for you. My name is David Read. We’re going to be bringing you another episode tomorrow, and that one is going to be Barclay Hope, who played Colonel Lionel Pendergast in Stargate SG-1 for several episodes, and gave his life, the character, along with Prometheus. Big thanks to my producers, Antony Rowling, Kevin Weaver, and Linda “GateGabber” Furey. My moderating team, couldn’t do this job without you. Antony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj, and Jakub. A big thank you to Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb, he keeps dialthegate.com up and running. If you enjoy the show and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, please click the Like button. It does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and gateworld.net YouTube channels. My name is David Read and I appreciate y’all tuning in. I will see you on the other side.