The Jaffa legend teams up with Dial the Gate to bring you a fun-filled panel from this year’s Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia!

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TRANSCRIPT
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Christopher Judge:
So, we were always looking for ways to truncate that process. Our visual effects department came up with a latex appliance that could be slapped on. That was it for the day.

Panel Host:
On your actual physical forehead.

Christopher Judge:
The original once, which I’m surprised we only put it upside down once…

Panel Host:
Only once?

Christopher Judge:
David? David? David!

David Read:
Hey, buddy.

Christopher Judge:
David, come up here.

David Read:
Greetings everyone. Welcome to Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. I appreciate you being here for this surprise drop on Sunday. The biggest convention, fan convention, arguably in the United States, perhaps the world, though I’m sure there will be a few people who will argue, is Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. This year, 2025, it was held August the 28th to September the 1st. I, spur of the moment, decided to go from Nashville to Atlanta and attend. Christopher Judge was there the whole weekend. I only found this out reading the guest list as I’m driving there, in the passenger seat reading, by the way. I texted him and we agreed to meet up. On Saturday, the first day that I attended, the 30th, he invited me on stage. We recorded 50 minutes of probably a 55, 56-minute panel, which I’ve preserved for you here in the following minutes. Christopher has given me his permission to share this with all of you. Afterwards we have a little exclusive from the steps of Dragon Con where photos are taken. I hope you enjoy. There was a lot of new information that I didn’t know that he shared, including where the Zat’nik’tel got its name, and a few other nuggets that Chris threw out to the crowd. The audience size is not what you would expect, because the event was delayed in the main ballroom that he was supposed to be in and was rescheduled later. I still don’t know how he figured out which room he was in because it wasn’t posted anywhere. The crowd size is smaller than you would expect, but it was still a great time. I was so privileged to be invited to participate in 50 minutes of his panel. Let’s have a look.

Christopher Judge:
Did anyone watch Dialing Home? Just you? See, that’s why we got canceled, ’cause none of you fuckers watched it. Oops. I’m sorry. Sorry about that. Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry. Children, children, I’m so sorry. This is Mr. David Read. He is the most knowledgeable man on the face of the Earth about all things Stargate.

David Read:
Hello, everyone.

Christopher Judge:
If we were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, he’s my first call. What was the question that I need your help for?

Panel Host:
When was it upside down?

Christopher Judge:
What episode was that where we put the tattoo upside down?

David Read:
Pretty positive that was “The Enemy Within.” Thank you, sir.

Christopher Judge:
I love him.

David Read:
Feel free to fact check me because I have been known to be wrong.

Christopher Judge:
No, you have not. No, you have not ever been known to be wrong. That is not the truth.

David Read:
Ask David Nykl.

Christopher Judge:
It went through the assembly of the episode, no one caught it. It went through the director’s cut, no one caught it. It went through the producer’s cut, no one caught it. It went through the studio cut, no one caught it. It actually is in the episode and it’s upside down. The original appliance, as I was saying, the three-piece, was secured using Pros-Aide. Michael Dorn had just sued Paramount because of the burns that Pros-Aide had left on his face, so we used Pros-Aide. It actually burned the tattoo into my forehead. I was a younger man, single. First, I was very taken aback by it and then I went to the club and they were like, “Well, oh, you’re the guy from Stargate.” “Why, yes I am. Here’s the proof.” We ended up using Beta Bond, which is when you go to the hospital and you have a cut or something, they don’t wanna do stitches, they use Beta Bond. All of Hollywood discovered Beta Bond at the same time. The problem was you could no longer get it in hospitals, because the companies would charge Hollywood three times what they would charge hospitals. For a long period of time, you couldn’t get it in hospitals, which is ridiculous.

Panel Host:
Thinking about the four episodes that you wrote, what was the process for that? Was there a writer’s room? Did you have to pitch and then re-do? How did that go?

David Read:
May I continue this one?

Christopher Judge:
Please do. It’ll sound better coming from you.

David Read:
If I may. Is it Sammy?

Panel Host:
Yeah.

David Read:
I’m David.

Panel Host:
Hi.

David Read:
I was a huge fan of “The Changeling.” I was like, “Oh, this is a great concept Christopher,” I had so many ideas about this, about sharing the symbiote back and forth. What was your impetus for this amazing idea of an episode? It was a very simple answer.

Christopher Judge:
I wanted to slide down a fire pole. That was what was behind writing the episode. I wanted to ride in a fire truck and I wanted to slide down a fire pole. Everything from the episode was built around that.

Panel Host:
Did you tell that to them when you first pitched it?

Christopher Judge:
God, no.

Panel Host:
No?

Christopher Judge:
No. I had gone in to talk to Brad, because we had two writers who really wrote the Jaffa episodes. One was Damian Kindler and one was Peter DeLuise. Kindler actually left to do another show.

David Read:
Sitcom.

Christopher Judge:
DeLuise was directing more and more and more. It really cut down his ability to write episodes. I went up and talked to Brad about it, like, “I’m really not getting these episodes a lot.” “Well, no one likes writing Jaffa episodes.”

Panel Host:
Why?

Christopher Judge:
Why not? He said, “First of all, we have to write how you guys talk and it’s really time-consuming.” Even though they didn’t, they would just literally write dialogue and put, “Or however Chris would say it.” That’s not really writing dialogue. Interestingly, I don’t know if you know this. Any time they would come up with a new weapon, they would just put together a bunch of consonants and a vowel. The first one was the Zat guns, the Zat’nik’tel. I went up to Jonathan Glassner’s office, ’cause he had written the episode, and I said, “How do you pronounce this?” He’s like, “I don’t know, you’re the alien.” Wait, what?” I just said, “Zat’nik’tel?” “Perfect!” That’s how the two Zats became the Zats.

David Read:
I did not know that. And the Tacluchnatagamuntoron?

Christopher Judge:
Yes. It was literally just a bunch of consonants. So, that’s what I came up with. Brad, God bless him, he’s the one who really facilitated me writing. They were always over budget. You had all these dudes that you had to do Jaffa makeup on, but then the armor, you’d have to hire more wardrobers to come in, so they were always over budget. The writers didn’t wanna write these over-budget episodes because now the studio is looking at it like, “Why are your episodes always over budget?” Brad said, “If you want Jaffa episodes, you have to write them yourself.” “OK.” The way episodes usually are assembled is, writers pitch ideas and then they will sit in the writer’s room and spit ball the story. I said, “If I’m gonna do this, I really wanna know if I can write it. Can I just go away and write it and turn in the script?” He said sure. I turned the script in right before our summer three-week break so I knew that I would hear over the break what they thought of it. Martin Wood was given a copy and Brad, obviously, had a copy. I heard nothing for three weeks.

Panel Host:
Oh, shoot.

Christopher Judge:
By the end of it, I’m beside myself. I can’t function; I can’t move. I’m waiting, I’m literally sitting by the phone waiting for it and it never came. Sunday night, before we go back to start shooting on Monday, the light was blinking. These were the days of answering machines. And kids, “an answering machine…” I hit the button. It’s Brad, he’s laughing. I’m like, “Oh, my God.” He said, “Chris, I’m pleasantly surprised. This is really good, no, it’s actually great. Thank you and we’re gonna produce it and it’s gonna get made.” There’s one more, it’s Martin Wood. He’s like, “Chris, this is great. I wanna sit down and talk to you with some ideas I’ve been going over for a couple weeks now.” You couldn’t have called me two weeks ago and told me this? That’s how it started. I had co-written a script with Del which is called…

David Read:
“The Warrior.”

Christopher Judge:
Thank you.

David Read:
“I will not say that this will be easy.”

Christopher Judge:
Rick Worthy, my God.

David Read:
Oh, God.

Christopher Judge:
My God, was he great. Rick Worthy played the warrior. I had co-written that script with DeLuise, but this was the first one where I just went away and did it. That’s what started it all.

Panel Host:
And did you have previous script writing experience before that first collaboration?

Christopher Judge:
I had written a couple pilots for another show. I had done a show called Sirens, which was a cop show. This will be very quick, it was done by a company called All American who was best known, at that time, for Baywatch. They had just sold Baywatch into syndication for the first time so they had $500 million and they were looking to expand. David Hasselhoff’s wife became a semi-regular on Sirens, as they were both owned by All American. Hasselhoff pretty much owned All American because he was the lead of Baywatch. I wrote a spin-off of Baywatch called Baywatch: Search and Rescue. Once again, this is my first attempt at being a fireman. It was about firefighters on the beach.

Panel Host:
Are there fires on the beach? I guess there are. Do beaches catch fire?

Christopher Judge:
OK. This is in all seriousness. I just drove by Malibu for the first time since the fire. It burned to the ocean; it literally burned to the ocean. It was all still the paramedics and the whole thing. All American loved it and unfortunately, I put trust in someone I shouldn’t have and they renamed it something and cut me out of it.

Panel Host:
What?

Christopher Judge:
Then, the part that I’d written for myself, they hired one of my best friends. I’m still hurt.

Panel Host:
He’s still hurt.

Christopher Judge:
No, I’m not. It taught me a valuable lesson which I didn’t learn until the next pilot I wrote. I wrote, after Sirens, an updated Miami Vice and it was called Along the Watchtower. The theme of the show was Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix. I knew the president of UPN at the time, Lucy Sally. I sent her the script, she loved it, we started actively negotiating. Then my agents get a pass letter saying unfortunately we will no longer be able to go forward with this project. That fall, they had on a show with Bill Bellamy and I forgot the…

David Read:
More information.

Christopher Judge:
Gosh, I forgot the other cat’s name. But it was my show, they renamed it, but they didn’t even bother to change the character names, the setting, the cars they drove, the dialogue, nothing.

Panel Host:
Did you think of suing them?

Christopher Judge:
“Sue us!” They’ll keep you in court forever. Those are unwinnable. I had to chalk it up to lesson learned. Everything has to be paper. Everything has to proceed with a traceable electronic footprint. That’s what taught me that. Sometimes the best lessons are the hardest lessons.

Panel Host:
At least by that point you knew, “I’ve got good ideas, people like them, they don’t like to pay me for them.” So, something of a compliment. I’m gonna open it up to audience questions in just a second. My last one, because I am very interested, was there a childhood core memory behind the fire pole thing?

Christopher Judge:
There are kids here, lady. No.

David Read:
That’s a good question though. Don’t be mad. Don’t be dirty.

Christopher Judge:
No, it’s actually not. I moved to a brand-new neighborhood when I was very young with my family. The company that built the houses put in faulty water heaters. So, house after house, the water heaters would blow up and the houses would burn down. My best friend at the time got burned alive in a fire. I watched the firemen run into this burning house and save members of the family. Ever since then, to this day, firemen are my heroes. It was “Changeling,” we had a mishap on set and one of the cars blew up. We used real firemen. As we’re running away from the explosion, they’re running to it. To this day, firemen are still my heroes, that’s the story.

Panel Host:
Gonna open up the mic to questions now. Also, reminder, we do have a Discord. If you would like to ask your questions that way, I will read them out. For our first question, I saw right here next to the mic. Dan, could you grab the mic and bring it down to the person who’s right behind you? We’ll let them have the first question.

Convention Guest 1:
Hi. Thank you. I have two.

Christopher Judge:
Hey.

Convention Guest 1:
Hello. It’s me who watched Dialing Home.

Christopher Judge:
You’re awesome.

Convention Guest 1:
Sorry, this is gonna take a second.

Christopher Judge:
No worries.

Convention Guest 1:
I had brain surgery three weeks ago. I have a scar on the back of my neck now like I’ve been Goa’uld hosted. Fun fact.

Christopher Judge:
You know what I love about this gathering of this wonderful thing called Dragon Con? We can find positivity in everything, can’t we?

David Read:
We can find positivity in everything. So, any Machiavellian tendencies?

Convention Guest 1:
Not yet. Still figuring it out.

David Read:
Any desires to change the world?

Christopher Judge:
Delusions of grandeur?

Convention Guest 1:
Yeah, I’ll do it for getting the mic first, maybe. I’ve been watching Stargate since I was eight years old and it was my comfort show in the hospital. I’ve been watching for the last month, Stargate SG-1, all the time. That’s my best friend. She can attest. I love Teal’c. We’ve always loved Teal’c. I have three brothers and your episodes are our favorites, so I wanted to ask about them. I wanted to know how much control over the Jaffa lore you ended up having.

Christopher Judge:
Some. Pretty much the person who really stood alone was Peter DeLuise. He had played an alien on…

David Read:
Genetically Engineered Life Form: SeaQuest, Dagwood. Teal’c and Dagwood are kindred spirits.

Christopher Judge:
I first met DeLuise on 21 Jump Street. We had known each other for a very long time and he took a particular affinity to Teal’c and the Jaffa. So, the majority of Jaffa lore is from DeLuise.

Convention Guest 1:
Cool. Were there any additions that you made that stood out to you?

Christopher Judge:
Sure.

David Read:
That’s great.

Christopher Judge:
OK, when we started the show, Teal’c didn’t have a lot of dialogue. This was by design. When we got the first episode, he had these long monologues and I said he’s talking way too much. Give him some mystery, so then everything he says is important. They did, much to my chagrin, they really took that to heart. We’ll tell the truth about it. It didn’t take a lot of studying for me to say, “Thank you, O’Neill.” “You are correct, Daniel Jackson.” “You’re looking mighty fine, Captain Carter.” Might be paraphrasing him. Because I didn’t have to study lines after work, I became a staple at the nightclub scenes. Often, I would come to work with very little sleep, or none. There would be these big scenes with everyone talking but Teal’c, sometimes six, seven pages.

David Read:
That’s true.

Christopher Judge:
When you have to do the master, then everyone’s close-ups too, it would be hard for me to stay awake. The first time I got caught sleeping, DeLuise happened to be directing. I was knocked out and I hear DeLuise going, “Chris? Chris, are you sleeping?” ‘Cause that’s the way he actually talks. I sat bolt upright. I said, “No, I’m meditating.”

Convention Guest 1:
You started Kelnorim? Was that you?

Christopher Judge:
Yeah.

Convention Guest 1:
You started Kelnorim?

Christopher Judge:
Yes. I said, and I was in damage control mode. I said, “Why would I be interested in what these Earth people are talking about? I have left my people. I have left my…” I’m getting more and more amped up, ’cause I’m starting to believe it. “I’ve left my wife, my child. Why would I care about what they are talking about?” I hear this, “Oh, sorry.” So, the next episode, they have built in Kelnorim. It starts with one candle, by Season Five or Six, the entire set would be lit. There was no artificial lighting, it was hundreds of candles. The entire scene would be me sitting there meditating. Chalk up one for the little guy.

Convention Guest 1:
OK. One last thing before I pass the mic away. I’m an author and I published this little book. The main character has the brain condition that I had. I’ve signed this for you. Can I give it to you?

Christopher Judge:
Darling, absolutely. I’ll come down and get it.

David Read:
Come on, give her a hand.

Panel Host:
We should go right into the next person.

Convention Guest 2:
Hi, my first question was already answered but I do have another. Your son in the show was really impactful; it had a lot of emotion behind it. I wondered how that affected you playing Teal’c forward. Did that give you more emotional depth and is there something from your personal life that you added?

Christopher Judge:
The direction of Teal’c was very amorphous in the beginning so I wrote my own backstory. The backstory that I built for myself was that I had left a wife and child. It just so happened that was what they were thinking, so it was the perfect storm. I missed a lot of my children growing up, working. Anytime there were episodes with Rya’c, they always hit home with me. It really shaped a lot about Teal’c: this longing to not only see his wife and child, but to make sure that they actually lived free. That was the motivation behind everything that Teal’c did.

Convention Guest 2:
I wanted to thank you. Stargate’s probably my first and favorite fandom and your voice is so recognizable. I loved when I accidentally heard it on God of War from someone else playing it. “That’s Teal’c.”

Christopher Judge:
You didn’t need to throw in the “accidentally.” Thank you, honey.

Panel Host:
A quick question from the Discord. Apple Sauce asked, “What is the most expensive prop ever broken on set and who broke it?”

Christopher Judge:
Don’t tell.

David Read:
I don’t think the Stargate ever broke, did it?

Christopher Judge:
The Stargate?

David Read:
Did it break down once? I don’t think it did.

Christopher Judge:
Those were all fixed.

David Read:
Expensive props? Those darn arm bands, but he never had to wear those.

Christopher Judge:
Never had to wear them.

David Read:
Thank God.

Christopher Judge:
It wasn’t a prop, but it was a $700,000 camera.

Convention Audience:
Nooooooo!

Christopher Judge:
We were in a scene where we’re in the mess hall. Maybe you can help me.

David Read:
Were you eating pie?

Christopher Judge:
I believe I was eating pie.

David Read:
OK. Was there a famous tenor-looking figure in this episode?

Christopher Judge:
Urgo. No, it wasn’t Urgo, because when Dom was there, I was on my best behavior. I know this is a sidebar, but he made it his mission to make me break. When that’s Dom DeLuise’s mission, that’s probably gonna happen. That’s why I’m in Ergo so little; I couldn’t stay in character. Every scene, I would break. He would do the scripted dialogue, but then he would look at me and go, [groaning comedic noise].” I’d be like, what? That truly is why I’m not in Urgo a lot, because there’s not a scene that I made it through without laughing.

David Read:
Seriously, what did you do to this camera? It had to have been you.

Christopher Judge:
You’re right. So, what do you do when there’s a lot of food and a lot of extras? You start a food fight. There was pie, mashed potatoes, and stuff that got inside this camera. That one, I was in the dog house for a while after that one. It ruined this $700,000 camera. There were no more food fights after that. Prop-wise, gosh, the staffs used to break all the time. We had three different versions of the staff. We had the ones that we really couldn’t use that were lightweight, but you could see, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. We had the heavy ones that didn’t do that, but they were so heavy that a lot of the background couldn’t carry them for very long. Just me, just saying, “Me strong.” Then we had the ones that actually fired, those were the most delicate of all. They would work two or three times and then they’d break and we’d have to bring new ones. We had hundreds of those and hundreds of the rubbery ones. So, it probably was the staffs

David Read:
Probably went through a lot of staffs if you added them up.

Christopher Judge:
Probably the staffs.

Convention Guest 3:
I was wondering, were there any particular TV shows, books, movies that you looked to as inspiration for Teal’c and did you ever have to fight to have that inspiration, or that vision, that you had for the character?

Christopher Judge:
Leonard Nimoy. My eyebrow raise was a direct thanks to Mr. Nimoy. It was a thank you. When I was a kid, I was a fucking weirdo and I always identified with Spock. He was like a fish out of water but he was cool as hell and he was an integral part of this wonderful group. He’s always who I identified with so, the Teal’c eyebrow, it’s a direct thank you to Mr. Nimoy.

David Read:
And your note from James Earl Jones.

Christopher Judge:
And my note from James Earl Jones. What shaped the physicality of Teal’c was Mr. Jones. Early in my career, I got this fairly big role as a hit man. I figured I’d be flashy. I was doing all this, “What you? What? I’ll kill you.” That sort of stuff. It was so embarrassing. I get a knock on my trailer door at lunchtime and it was an AD saying, “Mr. Jones would like to have lunch with you.” And, “Ooh, what?” I said, “I don’t know that…” He said, “So are you saying no? Would you like to tell Mr. Jones, no?” “I’ll be right there.” His speaking voice is very different than his performing voice. He’s very soft and gentle and almost speaks a little higher, volume-wise, but a whisper. He very gently talked to me about acting and the thing that always stuck with me, he said, “Never move unless you have to, unless there’s something so dramatic or something that hurts you so emotionally that you have to move to be okay.” That’s kinda what I live by. I never move unless I have to.

Panel Host:
I’m gonna do another from the Discord.

Christopher Judge:
Thanks.

Panel Host:
Aaron asked, “Joe Flanigan of Stargate Atlantis stated that the SG-1 set was like the patients running the asylum. Can you give an example of what he meant by that?”

Christopher Judge:
The tone was set by Rick and Rick is great. He’s got one of the greatest senses of humor that I’ve ever met, but he’s also one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He and Michael Greenburg were business partner; their company was one of the co-producers of Stargate. Early on, maybe it was even our first day on set, I’m not sure, we were all huddled together as a cast and, literally, Rick said, “Let’s do it as long as it’s fun and the day it’s not fun, let’s quit.” It just never stopped being fun. So, much to the chagrin of a lot of the producers, all the directors… We knew we had a job to do, but it was always fun. If you had a joke to tell, we’d stop or pause filming. Someone told a joke, or an anecdote, or what happened last night, or what happened with your kids, what happened with your pets, whatever. That was always first; your life and having fun, laughing at work and not letting whatever external stresses get to you. We almost always got our days, but… OK, no, we didn’t. We always brought episodes in when they were supposed to be brought in. We never missed a deadline, but Rick ran a pretty loose ship. It was always noisy. It was always laughter, farting. It was great for us. A lot of our guest stars found it disconcerting because they weren’t used to working that way. A lot of sets are like a death march. It’s so quiet, you have to pay attention and everyone’s whispering, you can hear a pin drop. When the leads come on, no one talks, they all use sign language. That’s not the way Stargate was. It was loud, rambunctious and fun. When they started Atlantis, the producers were determined, “We’re not gonna allow this again.” They ran a tight ship over there and there was very little laughter. I’m sure there was some.

David Read:
There was a lot less joy.

Christopher Judge:
Wow, that’s very diplomatic of you. “There was a lot less joy.”

David Read:
They got the work done.

Christopher Judge:
Yes. But there’s two ways to work and that’s the way I don’t prefer. God of War is modeled on the Stargate set. It’s loud, it’s noisy, there’s music. When there’s a time to be serious, it’s time to be serious, that’s not all the time. I didn’t know that about Atlantis until I did Atlantis. A lot of their crew had come over from SG-1 and I was shocked, ’cause it was quiet, and people were walking quietly and talking quietly. I’m like, “Who died?”

David Read:
I will say this, the tone is set by the lead.

Christopher Judge:
Absolutely.

David Read:
That’s all I’ll say.

Christopher Judge:
Absolutely. For the week that I did… What was the name of that?

David Read:
“Midway.”

Christopher Judge:
“Midway,” thank God. The week I did “Midway,” it was a throwback to SG-1. I refused to be quiet. I refused to let other people be quiet. I refused to not have people have fun and laugh. I mean no slight to Atlantis at all; I think they were happier working that way.

David Read:
They did their own thing.

Christopher Judge:
I couldn’t work like that, but they did, and they did it very well. There was quite a difference. Did that answer your question?

Panel Host:
That was technically a Discord question.

Christopher Judge:
Did that answer Discord’s question?

Panel Host:
I think so.

Christopher Judge:
OK, awesome.

Convention Guest 4:
Long time listener, first time caller. Two-part question: One, would you ever reprise this role? And two, if you did, what would you like to see happen?

Christopher Judge:
It’s funny…

David Read:
Do you wanna spill a little bit of that story that you admitted?

Christopher Judge:
What?

David Read:
You never told it to me.

Christopher Judge:
Are you serious?

David Read:
Yep. I would like to hear some of it, please. Thank you for this question.

Christopher Judge:
You got some feelings about this. SG-1, we regurgitated other stories. Crap, I forgot. What was the Amazon one?

David Read:
That was “Birthright.”

Christopher Judge:
“Birthright.” Brad had come to me and said, “Can you do a take of the Amazonian mythology that isn’t like it was written by a 15-year-old boy?” I was 17. So, I said, “Sure,” so that’s what “Birthright” came out of. It was our take on the Amazonian mythology. When there was first talk of rebooting Stargate, my partner and I had come up with a pitch, which was our take on… OK, so I wanna be very careful about this. Black Panther had a lot of similarities to the Jaffa Nation. When they challenged for the leader of Wakanda, it was very similar to the Jaffa Jomo’sequ, which was that anyone had the right to challenge the leader of the Jaffa in battle.

David Read:
Right of leadership.

Christopher Judge:
Yes. I’m not saying that they got anything from Stargate and I mean that, ’cause I’m a huge fan of Black Panther. It made it really simple when I went in to pitch, which… Not a reboot, but kind of… How would you say? A restarting, a continuation…

David Read:
The next thing.

Christopher Judge:
Yes.

Panel Host:
Revival.

Christopher Judge:
Awesome, thank you. I literally pitched it as SG-1’s version of Black Panther. You had this group of now free people who have taken over, who have assumed all of this advanced technology, so what do you do? Do you keep it to yourselves, stay hidden, or do you go help other worlds defend themselves? It starts off where there’s the council of free Jaffa and they are attacked. You find out that all of these years, Teal’c has kept an open back channel to O’Neill and they’ve kept in touch regularly this whole time.

David Read:
So, he’s been away?

Christopher Judge:
Who?

David Read:
Teal’c has been away.

Christopher Judge:
He’s no longer part of SG-1, he’s no longer part of Earth. His only connection to Earth now is his conversations with O’Neill. After the Jaffa Free World is attacked, he wants to ask O’Neill if he’s familiar with these beings who have attacked the Jaffa home world. O’Neill says, “We were just attacked and they sound very similar.” This is what brings, at least Teal’c and Bra’tac, back to SG-1, or back to the Stargate command, and then it proceeds from there. We had a lot of traction from a lot of different regimes that kinda came and went. Because of the last one with Jenny, we were like, “We were actually gonna proceed with it.”

David Read:
Stargate Origins had just been done. There’s always a season of regime change at this particular institution and we fell between the cracks. I was looking forward to it, and that was cool. That’s a cool premise.

Christopher Judge:
Thank you, brother.

David Read:
I like it.

Christopher Judge:
That’s what we had. Chris was actually gonna green light it. It had been green lit.

Convention Audience:
Boo.

Convention Guest 4:
Is there anything we can do?

Christopher Judge:
No. Because now MGM is owned by Amazon.

Panel Host:
Damn.

Christopher Judge:
At least I’ve heard now that there are… What was Bezos’ baby? Rings of Power?

David Read:
Bezos’ baby was Rings of Power.

Christopher Judge:
Rings of Power. He’s married and doing whatever else he’s doing now. They have at least started talking about what could possibly happen with the Stargate franchise.

David Read:
There was a certain exit of a certain high-profile person.

Christopher Judge:
I wasn’t gonna say that. Yes.

David Read:
The one who’s remaining is much more favorable to Stargate. That’s all I’ll say.

Christopher Judge:
Yep.

David Read:
So, who knows?

Panel Host:
Keep your hopes up.

Christopher Judge:
We know very little, but we are all hopeful. Whether it comes to fruition, no idea. I really don’t think it really matters who the team is. The star of the show is the Stargate and where you can go and the adventures and the stories you can tell by walking through that shimmering puddle. I just think it’s such a great plot device that it’d be a shame to not have it go on, whether I’m involved or not. To answer your question specifically, for years I would’ve said no. Now, of course, I couldn’t be the big quiet guy in the back anymore so that would have to change a lot. I think it’d be fun to have more adventures.

David Read:
That’s great.

Christopher Judge:
Thank you for the question.

Panel Host:
So, we have about five minutes left.

Christopher Judge:
Five minutes?

Panel Host:
For the sake of everyone in line… That was fast.

Christopher Judge:
Wait. We’ve been rescheduled by…

Panel Host:
We’ve had a full hour.

Christopher Judge:
We have time constraints?

Panel Host:
Yeah, ’cause the other panel after us also got rescheduled from the same time.

Christopher Judge:
Let’s reschedule that panel.

Convention Audience:
Woo hoo!

Panel Host:
Anyways, we’re gonna try and get through as many questions as we can. So, ask and answer quickly.

Convention Guest 5:
Wait, can you hear me?

Christopher Judge:
Yeah.

Convention Guest 5:
I have a quick question. It shouldn’t take too long.

Christopher Judge:
So, you know you saying that delayed your question?

Convention Guest 5:
My question is, what’s your opinion on the Zat gun in general?

David Read:
Oh, boy.

Christopher Judge:
No, I know how it works.

Convention Guest 5:
I want to get more into the specifics of it. When you shoot someone once, they’re knocked out. Let’s say another battle goes on, technically they’re shot twice. Are they dead in that second battle or are they just knocked out again? That’s my only question.

Christopher Judge:
You would know the answer to this one.

David Read:
Your body produces an electromagnetic field and the Zat gun alters your EM field. If you recover within a certain amount of time, and everyone’s a little different, it’ll have a different effect on you. How it breaks locks, though, I have no idea.

Christopher Judge:
That’s the authority right there.

Convention Guest 5:
All right. Thank you.

Christopher Judge:
I love you, cuz. Wait, could you say that again? Your mic didn’t pick that up.

Convention Guest 6:
Oh, sorry. Since your voice is considered so iconic…

Christopher Judge:
Oh, that’s what I thought you said.

Convention Guest 6:
Do you have any favorite exotic or esoteric words for when you’re speaking?

David Read:
What do you say to your wife when…

Christopher Judge:
Hey, easy there.

David Read:
When she’s making dinner.

Christopher Judge:
My wife doesn’t cook. No. Phew. My daughter and I have “Roadhouse.” That’s when we know we seriously need to talk to each other. She’ll either leave me a voice message saying, “Daddy, Roadhouse,” or I leave her a message saying, “Roadhouse.” God, when I was younger, “Forehead.” I have no idea why. “Forehead.”

Convention Guest 6:
Thank you.

Christopher Judge:
So, there’s silly stuff like that.

Convention Guest 7:
Hi there. Is there bit of Teal’c that makes it into your other work that you just couldn’t avoid? Is there any moment in playing God of War that you were like, “OK, that was really a Teal’c and not a Kratos moment?”

Christopher Judge:
To answer your question, the debate on whether or not to have Kratos say “indeed” went on for two and a half years. Two and a half years. Cory was the one who was dead set on that Kratos had to say “indeed” at least once, and he did say it once.

David Read:
You didn’t wanna say it?

Christopher Judge:
I wanted Kratos to stand on his own without having to lead. A lot of it came from, I didn’t understand how big Kratos was. I didn’t understand how big and beloved the franchise was until E3 of 2017, and I panicked. I swear I panicked. That’s what it came from. To answer your question, the thing that I love about, pretty much every character I play or will play in the future, is the love he has for his children.

Convention Guest 8:
Hello, do you know much about how the Stargates were made or how many there were?

David Read:
They were originally created several billion years ago by a guy named Amelius, who was among the first Alterans to head away from the Ori Galaxy to the Milky Way. Somewhere in there, Destiny launched, and then we got the Milky Way Gates and then the Pegasus Gates. There are potentially hundreds of millions of them.

Convention Guest 8:
I meant for the props.

David Read:
Richard Hudolin talks about how he adapted it from the feature film Gate in an interview that I did on my channel. Please do me a favor and go to YouTube, Dial the Gate, and look up. Richard Hudolin. He talks about how he built the Stargate and adapted it from the screen to actually make it work. In 10 seasons, it never missed a glyph.

Christopher Judge:
He’s right. But there’s two gates. There’s the SG-1 gate and the Atlantis gate.

David Read:
And then the SGU gate.

Christopher Judge:
Was there a Universe… They had their own separate gate?

David Read:
Yes.

Christopher Judge:
Oh, wow.

David Read:
But it wasn’t a gear, it was a chain.

Christopher Judge:
Oh, interesting. All right. That was the greatest misdirection ever.

David Read:
That was awesome.

Panel Host:
I knew what you were asking.

Christopher Judge:
If they just ask really quick.

Convention Guest 8:
It’s interesting about the actual gate lore as well though.

David Read:
Thank you.

Christopher Judge:
OK, come on, really quick. Come on.

Convention Guest 9:
So, most of your lines as Teal’c, short, sweet and to the point. How differently did you prepare for the Fight For Others monologue in “The Ark of Truth?”

Christopher Judge:
Oh my goodness. They kind of warmed me into it because after Season Seven when the cast changed, I started having more and more dialogues, monologues and stuff and longer speeches. It kind of warmed me for that; to be prepared to actually remember all that dialogue because your mind’s like a muscle. If you don’t practice memorization a lot, you lose it. That is what really warmed me to that. Yes, thank you.

Panel Host:
And with that…

Christopher Judge:
No, wait. One more, just one more. One more, give me more. Give me more.

Convention Guest 10:
I wanna start off by saying you guys are awesome. Thank you for doing this, and everybody behind the scenes, thank you for making this happen as well. Really quick, open-ended question, I wanna hear your take. What is one of your most memorable memories from filming on set that particularly sticks out to you as being positive?

Christopher Judge:
How much we laughed every day; that’s the thing that sticks out. We all knew each other’s kids, dogs, wives, husbands, cousins, everything, truly. A lot of shows have bullshit saying that they were a family. They said they were “like a family.” We were a family.

Panel Host:
And with that, our panel is officially over. Thank you all so much. You’ve been a wonderful audience.

Christopher Judge:
Mr David Read.

Convention Audience:
Whoo!

Panel Host:
I have no idea how ratings on the app works when a panel is rescheduled, but if you can figure it out, please give us five stars. If you can’t, that’s fine. Thank you. Bye, Chris.

David Read:
My tremendous thanks to Christopher Judge for making this episode possible, for sharing his memories from production. Particularly the sliding down the fire pole and riding in a firetruck. That was true. I asked him when we were shooting Dialing Home, “What was the impetus for “The Changeling?” He’s like, “Honestly, I just wanted to ride in a firetruck.” It’s like, “That whole thing came out of that?” It’s funny how art and creativity work sometimes. My name is David Read. You’re watching the Stargate Oral History Project. As promised, let me show you some footage from the photo day for the Stargate cosplayers. Every cosplay group at Dragon Con gets a chance to get their photos on the steps at the convention center in downtown Atlanta. Here’s the Stargate folks along with a special guest. [clip starts/ends] Before we go, if you enjoy seeing Stargate content on YouTube and wanna see more of it, please do consider clicking the Like button, it does help with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. Clips from this episode may appear over the course of the next few weeks and months on the Dial the Gate YouTube channel. My appreciation for my staff has no bounds here. My production team, Antony, Kevin, Sommer and Brice; you guys make these shows possible. My moderators Antony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj and Jakub. Big thanks to Matt “EagleSG” Wilson for his amazing opening sequences and Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb, who keeps DialtheGate.com up and running. We have a few more surprises heading your way before we wrap up this season and there’s still a bunch to be scheduled that I’m working with. I’m actively pursuing five or six right now; we’re in talks to finalize some dates. I know that we have Tygh Runyan scheduled for the 4th…is it the 4th? Let me double check this here really quick. He played Dr. Robert Kane in Stargate Universe. Really looking forward to talking to him because his character was really plugged into all the meta stuff that was happening when he was left behind on the Obelisk planet. Robert Kane, Stargate Universe, live October the 5th, 10:00 AM Pacific Time. He’s gonna be taking your questions, so you Stargate Universe fans out there, come prepared to ask him some questions. He’s already got his episodes so I’m hoping he’s rewatching them. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in and I will see you on the other side.