Dial the Gate is proud to host a recovered 10-year-old interview between David Read and Carmen Argenziano at TimeGateCon in Atlanta, Georgia. Carmen takes us through his journey as a performer, and we examine specific scenes throughout his journey as “Jacob Carter” and “Selmak” in Stargate SG-1. Apologies for the poor audio quality.

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Timecodes
00:00 – David, Carmen, Tony and Christopher
03:10 – Opening Credits
03:37 – Welcome and Outline
06:45 – Guest introduction
07:58 – Carmen’s Background
10:53 – Was “Jacob” given to you?
12:31 – Becoming a Recurring Character
16:00 – Episode Clip
16:35 – Playing Characters with Cancer
17:22 – What do you look for in a script when you audition?
20:17 – Choosing Characters to Play
22:47 – How Carmen Found Acting
24:29 – Jacob’s Control Selmak’s Counterpart
25:41 – Jacob and Selmak Blending
28:28 – Jacob and Selmak’s Symbolic Relationship
30:14 – The Tok’ra and Lack of Trust
32:44 – Visiting Mark in “Seth”
35:58 – Did Your Children Inform Your Relationship with Sam?
38:26 – Selmak’s Approach to Humanity
41:54 – Dislike of any episodes?
43:18 – Jacob’s Death
47:08 – Jacob’s Death (Cont.)
49:11 – The Best Character You’ve Played
50:24 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
51:09 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read [clip]:
[In] Season Six, I know for sure, there was an episode called “Allegiance” in one of those rock pits, where the Tok’ra and the Jaffa got together for the first time. And Season One and Season Two, that’s a lot of years to go by where you’ve not shot anything together. I’ve always wanted to ask you both, was there some kind of animosity or something? Did one person wanna keep the other one apart? Did you guys go to the producers and say, “You know what? Don’t put any thick…”

Christopher Judge [clip]:
Are you still trying to stir trouble between these guys?

David Read [clip]:
I’m not trying to stir trouble at all. I just genuinely —

Christopher Judge [clip]:
It was a loving, caring place. There were no behind-the-scenes animosities.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Is he talking… He doesn’t know. Did you mention?

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Yeah. Tony was… He was gonna replace me, I heard. And that was —

David Read [clip]:
Nah.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
No, yeah.

David Read [clip]:
Are you serious? No. You’re making that up. Really?

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I don’t know. Tony came in and…

Tony Amendola [clip]:
He needed to be replaced.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
He had my new apartment, he had everything. I said, “What, what’s going on here?”

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I had his connection, I had the whole thing.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
What connection?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Connection, the stuff under the… sink.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Thank you.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Medicine.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
My medicine.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Your medicine.

David Read [clip]:
And this is why you guys weren’t in the same episodes for four years?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Look at these faces. Do you think there’s one episode up until the structure of Season Six that could contain this beauty?

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
You think so?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
A little bit.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I like this guy now. Even though he’s gonna replace me.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Not only are we actors, we are key lights.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
What’s a key light?

David Read [clip]:
I wasn’t gonna say anything, but I don’t know what that means either.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
You don’t know what a key light means? What are you doing interviewing us?

David Read [clip]:
A key light?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Yeah, a key, a key light.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
You’re in the light right now.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
You see?

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
At least you were, but now you’re not.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Now you’re not. Block them off.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
No, I had worked with Tony prior to that. No.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Once was enough. We were in the same acting class. He graduated, I didn’t. I was remedial.

David Read [clip]:
I didn’t exist yet.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
You got your masters in theater arts?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I do have my masters …

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I don’t have any…

Tony Amendola [clip]:
… in fine arts.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Damn, I don’t have any stinking masters in anything.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I don’t need any stinking…

David Read [clip]:
Gentlemen, Jaffa, Tok’ra, Kree. Kree.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
What the hell does Kree mean?

David Read [clip]:
It means a lot of things.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
No, I know. It’s Jaffa…

David Read [clip]:
Listen up.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Jaffa slang.

David Read [clip]:
Yoo-hoo.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I’m more of an evolved humanitarian. I’m not… Jaffas are…

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Jaffas are cool.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Jaffas are…

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Listen.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
… sub, sub —

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Jaffas are cool, and Jaffa are sort of… I mean, you don’t —

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I don’t think Jaffas are cool.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I’m telling you. Wait a moment.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
That damn thing you wore on your head all the time?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
We’re the…

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
That’s cool.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
… wild people. We are…

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
I would say that.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
Out in nature. You guys are so cerebral.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
We’re very evolved and very beyond all that wild shit.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I wonder if they even have sex, these guys? In the caves.

David Read [clip]:
They didn’t hide in caves.

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I know. You’d think —

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
Where was my sex tool?

Tony Amendola [clip]:
I always was wondering what was under all that calf skin.

Carmen Argenziano [clip]:
A sweaty body!

David Read:
Welcome everyone to Episode 20 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. It means a great deal to me to have you with us. In this episode, we are taking a step back 10 years, in fact, to May 30th of 2010 when Mr. Carmen Argenziano was still with us. Jacob Carter and Selmak of Stargate SG-1. This man was one of my favorite human beings and his loss was tremendous. In May of 2010, he and I were guests along with Diana Botsford, one of the writers of the Stargate SG-1 novels, in Atlanta, Georgia, at TimeGate Con. And I was approached by Mr. Alan Siler, who was one of the programming coordinators, and I think one of the founders, if I’m not mistaken, of the convention. He was a big Stargate fan, and he wanted to have a GateWorld presence there and I said, “I’ll love to be there on one condition. I get to interview Carmen.” And we spent 45 minutes together and I’ve had this DVD sitting in my closet for 10 years. And it was every intent of GateWorld to publish it. One thing led to another, and we didn’t manage to get it out, and then Carmen died. And we started going through a lot of the old content and it was like, “For this new show, for Dial the Gate, what do we wanna do?” And, like a sarcophagus, we wanted to resurrect him for an hour. This is a never-before-seen interview except if you were in that room in Atlanta, you saw it. I am frustrated with the audio quality. There is a hum of the recording. I do apologize for that. I’ve tried to minimize some of it in post, but we’re gonna present this content with you as well. I take Carmen through some initial questions and then we show some clips of the episodes as well. And we’re gonna see how this strings itself along. This is gonna be a very unique interview because it was 10 years before this show was built. So, I appreciate you coming by and walking down memory lane with us for this episode. And I do appreciate your patience. Before we start that: If you like Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you clicked the Like button. It makes a huge difference with YouTube’s algorithm and is going to help the show grow its audience. And please also consider sharing the video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my text notifications of any last-minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live. And clips from this livestream will be released over the course of next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Let’s go back in time, May 30th, 2010, to an interview between myself and Carmen Argenziano.

David Read:
I must thank TimeGate for making this interview with Carmen possible. We have interviewed you twice, neither of them by me. That sucks.

Carmen Argenziano:
It’s a pleasure and an honor to be interviewed by you, David. This is a very impressive young man, a young genius and an old actor. But it’s a pleasure, David.

David Read:
I interviewed 150 of you guys over seven years, and never you, so… Darren and I were competing. You were at Creation three years ago. And, at the beginning of the event, we go through the guest list and say, “OK, he’ll do him, I’ll do him.” And that’s how it works. When we got down to you and it was, “Whoever gets there first.” So, I went downstairs to interview someone, I went upstairs, found the two of you on the balcony, I was, “Damn. Missed the boat.” So, I went out there and listened, and you guys were out on the balcony and I missed it. Now you’re mine.

Carmen Argenziano:
When was Creation? Where was this?

David Read:
That was ’07. That was the spring of ’07.

Carmen Argenziano:
OK, right.

David Read:
Vancouver. It was in Vancouver. There’s… Your body of work is more extensive than I ever imagined that it would be. I didn’t want to just talk about Jacob Carter. I wanted to talk about… because you are not just Jacob Carter. Most of us recognize you as that, So, I went to your IMDb and I was, “There is no way that I’m gonna ever be able to scratch the surface with you.” You have done so much stuff. Do you look back on your life and say, “Man, this has been awesome.” Or do you just say, “Man, some of the stuff that I did, holy cow.”

Carmen Argenziano:
I guess IMDb gave me a credibility that I never dreamed of. And it’s amazing that two or three pages of… where do they get… It’s so detailed and specific, and things that I’ve never seen. And little roles that seem so terribly insignificant, and you roll through IMDb and it keeps going and going and going, ’til, “Wow, that’s really impressive.”

David Read:
There’s 170 different projects that you worked on that were listed there. And that doesn’t include your theater work.

Carmen Argenziano:
No. And it, fortunately, all adds up to a career. In retrospect, it’s amazing because I was explaining at one convention, or recently, that I don’t know what the average is, but it’s much less than a baseball average, three for ten. You don’t get three for ten auditions. If you did, you’d be extremely successful. Maybe you get one out of 12, or out of 15. And for every credit on IMDb, there’s 12 rejections. So, if you do the math and you see… It’s part of an actor’s life sojourn, an occupational hazard, or an unpleasant thing. But it’s what we do. You get a little thick-skinned, you stop taking auditions so personally that you look at it as a creative experience. And you have fun, and you work on it, and you do your thing. But as I said, prior to IMDb, so much of the work would have gone unchronicled. So, I’m so grateful that at least I can look, or my kids can see that their old man did something with his life. I’m grateful. And all those credits, I worked for. And very few of them were given to me. And I get a little credibility from IMDb.

David Read:
Was Jacob given to you? Or is he something you had to seek out?

Carmen Argenziano:
No. Jacob, I had to audition for along with some really, really good actors. I was talking about that last night. I remember Charles Cioffi and Ed Lauter and a few other actors. About 10 actors. I was explaining last night that Mary Jo Slater cast him, and that’s Christian Slater’s mom. She’s still a casting director in Los Angeles. And she brought us in, and we all went on tape. And I’m sure they sent the tape up to Vancouver. And I just forgot about it, as you do with so many auditions. Mostly, after auditions, the hindsight and the Monday morning quarterbacking sets in. You say, “Oh, why did I do that? I could have done that. I could have…” And you beat yourself up for about a day, and then you get another audition and you beat yourself up again for what you thought was necessary to get the job. But I was pleased with that one. And then a few days, my agent called and said, “Congratulations, you’re going to Vancouver.” And I said, “Great,” thinking that I was only gonna do one episode, but it turned out to be, God, how many years? Seven, six years?

Diana Botsford:
I’m talking eight years.

Carmen Argenziano:
Eight years?

Diana Botsford:
Between 20 episodes, I think.

Carmen Argenziano:
About 24 episodes all in all. About three or four a year for something like this. Thank you, Diana.

David Read:
So, you went in for “Secrets”. Did you go in for “Tok’ra 1 and 2”? Because they were pretty much right next to each other, just…

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah.

David Read:
… two episodes in between.

Carmen Argenziano:
When I went in for “Secrets”, when I got off the plane, the transportation took me to the studio and Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright explained that, “Listen, this is gonna go on for a few more episodes you have marked here. We’ve decided that Jacob Carter survives cancer,” and this and that. I said, “That’s great.” And he said, “So, we just wanna know if that’s OK with you.” And I said, “Yeah, I can work that out.” And we did “Secrets”, and Amanda was so sweet because I hadn’t worked in a few months and I was a little nervous over a couple lines and she was so wonderfully supportive. Just initially. We had some sort of affinity, some sort of an appreciation.

David Read:
A spark.

Carmen Argenziano:
There was a spark, and she got me through it, and then a nice relationship developed. I think I went… I don’t know how long after “Secrets” “[The] Tok’ra [Part] 2” was.

David Read:
One or two episodes later.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah. I don’t know if I was done for… I think so. I went back pretty soon after that and started my little Vancouver experience with Stargate.

David Read:
Let’s have a look.

Carmen Argenziano:
Sure.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Dad? I’ve been looking all over for you.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
You must be disappointed. Any idea why the President canceled?

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Colonel O’Neill witnessed an accident. The President couldn’t adjust his schedule. Bad time to go around. General Hammond’s gonna present us with the medals of our bravery soon, when we get back to base.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
That’s the only thing that matters, whether I can be there or not.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Dad–

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
I have cancer, Sam.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
What?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Lymphoma.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
That’s bad.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Well, it’s not good, but it’s not the worst. Don’t you worry. I’m gonna be around for a while.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
God, dad.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
I was hoping to stick around long enough to see you become an astronaut. Sweetheart, I don’t care what it is you do in that mountain, nothing in the world can live up to the chance of actually going to space. Not for you. It’s something you’ve wanted your whole life. And I admit it, I wanna see you fulfilling your life’s dreams before I die.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
But it’s my dream. Doesn’t that make it up to me?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Fathers have dreams too.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I’m sorry, I can’t.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
All right. Like I said, uh, this thing’s been going for months So, you don’t have to check up on me tomorrow either.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Dad, please don’t go like this.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Congratulations on the medal. I’m sure you deserve it.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Dad?

David Read:
There’s a lot in that scene, man.

Carmen Argenziano:
There is. They wanted Jacob to be a tough military man who deals on a military level. Not too emotional, not too warm and cozy. I said, “Yeah, we’ll find all that stuff later on.” That was… God, how many years ago?

David Read:
Season Two, So, we’re talking 11 years.

Carmen Argenziano:
My God. OK.

David Read:
Have you ever played a character with cancer before?

Carmen Argenziano:
I don’t remember. Mostly, my characters would get shot or something but–

David Read:
Instant death.

Carmen Argenziano:
Instant…

David Read:
Lead poisoning.

Carmen Argenziano:
Something. But no, I don’t remember ever having played a character with cancer before. No.

David Read:
I remember watching this episode, just talking to Sam, “Just tell him! Tell him!” He wants so badly for her to get in this program.

Carmen Argenziano:
And you could see the torture in her, the pain and the frustration about being able to share all that with me. She was so wonderful, so great.

David Read:
I am in a mountain, but I’m everywhere else.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah. That was —

David Read:
What do you look for in a script when you’re auditioning? What things do you look for? What things do you look out for?

Carmen Argenziano:
How I can get the role. What can I do? What can I do differently? Anticipating what the other actors are going to do, So, I can come in with a different angle. But you can pretty much tell the quality of a script through the first five pages. You know if the writing’s good or not. And usually episodic stuff, it’s already tested and proved and most of the episodic stuff is very well written, and by professionals and by staff and all that stuff. I look for the humanity. I look for the core, the inside. I look for what this character’s presenting to the world and what its cover is, what’s beneath it. I look for… and I like to peel a couple layers off and not give the obvious interpretation. I like contrast. I like giving it a different twist and a different angle. That always makes it more interesting. And the audition process is kinda tough because so many actors, “Should I memorize it? Should I just go in and read it cold?” You have to get familiar with the script and everything, but sometimes if you memorize it in a very short period of time, most of the focus and energy is spent recalling the words as opposed to being in character. And it’s important to… And I’m getting back to auditions as opposed to the quality of the script, but as I get older, I feel that most of what I read now, I have some sort of connection with. And as opposed to when I was younger, I would always envision another actor, for some reason, being able to do the role better than myself. But thank God that’s changed. But as a young man, there’s so many things you go up for. Maybe because of my name, or whatever typecasting, and going up for all sorts of Middle Eastern people and Latino people and this and that, which I really don’t have any connection with. I was born in mid-America, very Americanized, and that was always a challenge for me. I didn’t have the best ear in the world as far as accents and everything, but I would train. I would try to give it my best shot, but so often you go in those rooms knowing that I’m not really right for this character, but you have to give it a shot anyway.

David Read:
I’m pretty sure you’ve done OK. So, all is well. Are there any characters that you won’t play? Characters that lack redemption? I know that if you look at a character on a page and there’s sometimes, there’s gotta be where there’s just nothing to this character. I mean, this is exactly what it is, it is and that’s it. Do you have to find who the character is? Does the character have to be interesting in order for you to play it, or is it sometimes just, “I need to pay the rent this month. So, let’s do that one.”

Carmen Argenziano:
That’s a good question. I think it’s the actor’s responsibility to make the character interesting. So many characters are so one-dimensional and so obvious, but my first teacher, Lee Strasberg, says, “You cannot condescend to a character, and you cannot dislike a character.” You have to find some humanity and, in the worst kind of serial killer, some part of his humanness, some part of why he became such a monster, why he is what he is.

David Read:
There’s a reason for it.

Carmen Argenziano:
You just can’t play a villainous, mustachioed, twisty, cliché of a bad person. Otherwise, it just doesn’t register with people. You have to find some even… What Tony Hopkins or whatever did with Adolf Hitler, you gotta somehow find something about them that’s human.

David Read:
But there’s a risk of losing yourself in the process depending on how …

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah.

David Read:
… close you are to the —

Carmen Argenziano:
Actors can take themselves so seriously.

David Read:
This is true.

Carmen Argenziano:
So boring. Just snap out of it. Give me a break. What are you gonna shoot me or something? When it’s all said and done, when you’ve done the work, come back to reality and be a human being again. But it does, when you’re working on a character in a play for a while, you certainly get shadings of that character that you see him interfering in your life and your relationship with your kids and with your personal relationships, because you’re exploring why he reacts or why he is what he is. And usually, especially with stage plays, you construct a whole biography of the character that intertwines with your own life. And actors are great observers. One of the things I love about acting is that I love being the fly on the wall and just watching people and not being observed myself, and even just their body language and their eyes and what they’re doing is more important to me than what they’re actually saying, because I just… ever since I was a kid, maybe that’s one of the reasons I went into acting. I was so fascinated with just watching people and how we’re so different yet so much the same, and that really intrigued me. It also intrigued me that I was somewhat of an introverted kid. I wanted so much to be more expressive and a little stronger and a little more secure and comfortable in my own skin that, uh ..

David Read:
There are a ton of introverts who are actors. It’s their outlet.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yes.

David Read:
And it’s …

Carmen Argenziano:
Very good.

David Read:
… their own expression.

Carmen Argenziano:
Very true. Montgomery Clift. So, many great actors were so introverted and so sensitive and had a very difficult time… We’re just more comfortable on stage or in front of a camera for some reason and could be much more expressive and could explore all that stuff that they have so pent up inside of them. I have an… As an actor, rage scenes and anger scenes and being an authority figure, which in life I wasn’t very good at. I was somewhat quiet and introverted. But as an actor, I could open up and be free and just enjoy myself.

David Read:
Does Jacob ever allow you to do that? That guy never lost his temper. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think he ever wants to. He’s always…

Carmen Argenziano:
He was always in control

David Read:
… almost always in control.

Carmen Argenziano:
You’re right. But there was a wonderful quiet authority about Jacob that I loved. And Jacob was a general and he was in control of his emotions all the time, and I never let his emotions get carried away with them. And we were discussing this last night that Selmak was a great counterpart to that because I think Selmak was Jacob’s bridge to kind of a universal awareness, or a God awareness, that Jacob didn’t have because of all the military training, what he did as a human being, had no room for that kind of compassion and humanitarian, inclusive kind of feeling, ’cause he was a warrior. And Selmak was kind of more of a spiritual warrior, and I enjoyed that duality so much, just playing back and forth from that.

David Read:
I just always looked at Selmak as kind of a philosopher. He was an observer of humanity and… Let’s watch the birth of this relationship.

JR Bourne as Martouf [clip]:
… always punch our host through the back of the neck. This just leaves a scar that many of us find very unsettling.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
So, why don’t the Goa’uld do it this way too?

JR Bourne as Martouf [clip]:
They don’t wish to remember the horror on their host’s face whenever they see their own reflection in the mirror. You must step away, Captain Carter.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Goodbye, kid.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
See you soon, Dad.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Now what?

Joy Coghill as Saroosh [clip]:
Kiss me.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
You’re kidding, right?

Joy Coghill as Saroosh [clip]:
No, I’m not.

Carmen Argenziano as Selmak [clip]:
Goodbye, dear friend.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
He’s alive. Is he OK?

JR Bourne as Martouf [clip]:
He’s very sick. And Selmak is weak, and she may not have the strength to heal him.

David Read:
You did a commentary for that episode.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah, yesterday. It’s such an attractive scene, isn’t it. I remember all the little symbiotes we had in a cage. There was a symbiote trainer there…

David Read:
Had been going through hoops of flame.

Carmen Argenziano:
They weren’t real symbiotes. They were little Naughas that we’d turn into Naughahyde later on, but a symbiote trainer was there, and one would scurry over my head and one would go this way and one would go that way, but we finally got one to go in my mouth, so it worked out.

David Read:
Gosh.

Carmen Argenziano:
J.R. Bourne’s a wonderful actor, too. He does a lot of work.

David Read:
Isn’t he an awesome guy?

Carmen Argenziano:
He’s a great guy. I like J.R., I love J.R. madly. And Joy, God, a wonderful older actress. And I thought her name was Joy Todd, and it’s not. I don’t know who she is, but she’s from English theater and Canadian theater, and she was lovely. She was just wonderful.

David Read:
You get this symbiote, and now there’s a duality inside of Carter, which I, frankly, was hoping that we’d see it explored a little bit more. You get that in a second. I wanna play that clip in a moment. These two are not the same people, but when they become part of the same body, they have to find a way to live with it.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yes.

David Read:
And this is obviously something that they worked out after a while.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yes. As you say, I wish the theme could’ve been explored more, but it’s a classic theme that goes back in literature for years about the duality in all of us. Being a bit schizophrenic myself, I had no trouble playing that role. I think it’s a wonderful theme, at the risk of sounding redundant. It’s the extreme… It’s a character that is taught somehow through life or through a spiritual awareness that there’s a whole other side of existence that he isn’t aware of, and there’s a prejudice and a bias that’s working against him, that if he just opened up and saw the world and understood and appreciated it and had some compassion, it changes your life. It changes your whole perception of life, how your mind reacts, how you deal with life, how you deal with adversity, how you deal with who you think is an enemy, or anything in life. If you just try to understand it and deal with it, you react so differently, and you can actually transcend and become part of a higher awareness.

David Read:
This race, it’s hard to remember, it’s hard to think that way since it’s been 12 years now, but we didn’t trust these people at that point. We were trying to form a relationship with them, and the Goa’uld, they were the Goa’uld as far as we would think, so if they had the exact… the Tok’ra were exactly the same physiology. We thought that they were just screwing around with us when they were saying, “Oh, yes, we share host and body, are the same.” But yet he was our emissary, he was our ambassador.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yes. And there was a lot of concern because of all the military secrets and everything he held because of the Tok’ra.

David Read:
The Tok’ra had all of them too.

Carmen Argenziano:
Right. But it’s wonderful. It’s possibly … there’s a parallel with the world and the Goa’uld being possibly, forgive me, Muslim extremists. And what’s good and what’s bad and where we’re going and who we should align ourselves with and what should we try to, what knowledge, what awareness, what peace, what can we offer? I thought of the Beatles and what their message was with Selmak and what altruism and what’s right in this world and what’s not right in this world, and the ignorance and the prejudice, and how we grow up with some sort of chauvinistic impression of our country, of our sex, that distinction, that them-or-us distinction, which is very troubling, and it’s getting more troubling as the world goes on and to somehow bring it all together. And what John Lennon tried to say in Imagine, that’s what Selmak’s trying to say to the world. Come on, life is tough for everyone. Please, don’t… Why do we feel we have to make it tougher for everyone, and ourselves?

David Read:
Just because you’re a symbiote and you look like the Goa’uld doesn’t mean that you are a Goa’uld, doesn’t mean you’re bad.

Carmen Argenziano:
That’s right. Don’t judge on looks or impressions or color or whatever. Listen, be aware, and try to include yourself.

David Read:
This is one of my favorite episodes here. I remember this, this scene. I love this.

Carmen Argenziano as Selmak [clip]:
It is I who must have decided.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Selmak.

Carmen Argenziano as Selmak [clip]:
Nice to see you once again, Captain Carter.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Likewise. So, let me ask you the same question.

Carmen Argenziano as Selmak [clip]:
Your father has an unresolved issue here and, frankly, it’s beginning to irritate me. Yes, your father’s a proud man. He refuses to see things you brought up within their relationship.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Mark isn’t exactly rushing into my father’s arms either. Even when we thought Dad was gonna die, he wouldn’t take my call.

Carmen Argenziano as Selmak [clip]:
It hurts your father deeply that his son didn’t talk to him on his deathbed.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Now, why would it hurt? As far as I was concerned, the kid wasn’t my son anymore. It didn’t hurt a bit.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Dad, I have a number from Mark in San Diego.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
So?

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I just thought you might want to know.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
When was the last time you saw him?

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I haven’t seen him since either of his kids were born. I guess he paints me with the same brush as he does you.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Selmak’s pushing me to go mend some fences.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
Selmak is as wise as they say. I’ll go with you. When do you want to do it?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
No, I didn’t say I’d go. I just said Selmak’s pushing it.

David Read:
His symbiote’s inside of him and as soon as he gets control of his body again, he’s like, “What’s–” He’s denying what the other one just said… he knows, he feels. What a proud human being.

Carmen Argenziano:
So, intractable. We’re so immovable. It takes a while for us to understand what the other part of us is saying, or what someone else is saying. There’s such a resistance to moving out of our own comfort level, even if it is ignorant and proud and dumb. But, yeah, that was a nice episode. But like you say, it was so undeveloped. I wish that there could have been more there.

David Read:
We get a mention in Season Seven, I guess. How are Mark and the kids? And she says they’re great. They’re wondering when they’re gonna see them again.

Carmen Argenziano:
They do make a reference.

David Read:
So, they had a relationship, did you bring any of your relationships with your children in to inform your relationship with Amanda and Sam?

Carmen Argenziano:
I have a stepdaughter who’s going to be 22, and she’s blonde and she —

David Read:
Oh, she’s in the pictures in the background.

Carmen Argenziano:
So, they needed some stills of Sam, and I when she was young and we just sent stills of my stepdaughter to them. And they worked out beautifully. Mia. And sure, I used a lot of that. I used a lot of that with my relationship with Sam. I think I had a three-year-old boy at that time, and my other son was just born. And the protective thing of a father, the dreams a father has for their kids, the concern a father has, the… all those things really, I think gave a certain depth and a certain color to Jacob and my relationship with Amanda. So much of your stuff, the depth and everything is… an actor finds through life, comes through his own life. And the maturing and experiencing and going through all the ups and downs of life. If you could just share those and bring them up in your characters and in your work, it’s very therapeutic. It’s a wonderful craft. It’s wonderful to be an actor in that sense because life becomes a little more objective. And all the pain and disappointments and all that stuff, you can use in your work as an actor as opposed to letting them embitter you in life and twist you around and make you cynical and everything. I think it’s ’cause acting has a great therapeutic value as far as getting through life and —

David Read:
We always say better out than in. And acting, you, it’s, you’re free to do that in many ways.

Carmen Argenziano:
You don’t get ulcers and all messed up, and I even find that in life now, just expressing myself. And I express myself even when I’m alone. As far as letting out the rage and all that stuff. And I don’t punch things. I punch walls sometime, but I never punch people or animals.

David Read:
This is true. Very good.

Carmen Argenziano:
I’ll squeeze a fish sometime. I’ve worked with a cat.

David Read:
And this?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
It’s a receiver that will allow me to tap into the sub-space network. We can keep tabs on Ba’al’s fleet, see how their battle with the replicators is faring. We can also get up to the minute Tok’ra intelligence reports from our agents in the field.

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O’Neill [clip]:
You know, we could have used something like this a long time ago.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
The High Council never thought they could trust you with it.

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O’Neill [clip]:
What changed their mind?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Nothing. They don’t know I took it. My relationship with the council is still a little strained.

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O’Neill [clip]:
It’s not gonna get any better if you keep stealing stuff. No complaints. I’ll take anything I can get. Weapons, receivers, funky silverware.

David Read:
There’s a couple of things I want to talk about with this. The technobabble. You didn’t do a whole lot of technobabble, but you did some of it.

David Read:
Did it ever just drive you nuts? Like, “How do I say that?”

Carmen Argenziano:
We talked about that. That’s the… Poor Samantha.

David Read:
Oh, man.

Carmen Argenziano:
She was very good at it. And I was saying this last night that the less dialogue Richard had, the happier he was. So, he would just, “You say that. No, you say that. You say that.” And poor Samantha had the brunt of all that. But I was saying last night, the technobabble really helped me just as an actor with doing regular dialog. It made regular dialogue so much easier. It made long hallway walking scenes —

David Read:
Around the Goa’ulds’ ship. Again, and again. Making those loops.

Carmen Argenziano:
And I made one of those loops with Richard. We have a whole thing around a loop and… everything went well until my last line. I just–

David Read:
“We’re gonna wipe them out, Jack, all of them?”

Carmen Argenziano:
That’s it. I just went deer in the headlights. They said… I went blank, So, we did it again and I got it. But it was all one take, So, we had to get it down. It’s a little frustrating and everything, but it was great training. It was a great exercise for memorizing and for delivering and for articulating and using all that stuff.

David Read:
This is the other thing I love about this scene is that we saw in “Seth” that Selmak was influencing Jacob. Selmak was probably not objecting to all of this. He seemed to be a being who had found a spot for humanity, and he had to have agreed with Jacob that they both trusted humanity more than the rest of the Tok’ra did. That Selmak saw something in humanity through Jacob that none of the other Tok’ra ever got. They were so deceptive and untrusting, maybe because they were living underground for thousands of years. I guess that would make you a little cranky… I just got that impression with Selmak that he was like, “You know what? I’m on board with humanity.”

Carmen Argenziano:
The blending. The blending …

David Read:
In its true form.

Carmen Argenziano:
… enriches both of them somehow. And I believe that to this day that a certain amount of blending and people coming together strengthens a lot, gives us a better, possibly a better gene pool. I’m not sure. We see what inbreeding does. Possibly getting out of that and different races getting together and all that stuff might have a great influence on humanity on this globe.

David Read:
Which episodes, looking back, do you dislike the most?

Carmen Argenziano:
I disliked the one where, I think it was a two-parter, they rescue me out of hell or something.

David Read:
“Jolinar’s Memories” and “The Devil You Know”.

Carmen Argenziano:
Just was weak.

David Read:
Was it the scenes or you just didn’t feel that the script was strong or?

Carmen Argenziano:
It wasn’t a bad script. We’re still… Actors just look at their performance sometimes, and so much more could have been done with that. And it was a kind of rush-rush. I had to go up there and I wasn’t really comfortable with… It seemed the dialogue was somewhat stilted and somewhat stiff. And if I could have improvised a little better, made it more real, or something, or connected a little bit more with the character and with the actors, I think it would have been richer for me. Though it remains one of my least favorite for some reason.

David Read:
My favorite, I’ve gotta say, it’s not in any of these. “Serpent’s Venom” with the mine was hysterical with trying to capture the mine and reprogramming it and all the banter that everyone had. “Take the HUD, Jack. Take the HUD because it’s not so easy. Whoa!” You know? Cargo ship going everywhere. A whole lot of fun.

Carmen Argenziano:
That was. Do you have that clip?

David Read:
I don’t. I was upstairs. I was going through last night.

Carmen Argenziano:
OK, that’s fine.

David Read:
This is one of the more cumulative scenes from the show right here from… Starting in “Grace”.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I can’t believe there’s nothing they can do. They can remove a Goa’uld. In the last few years, you’ve almost perfected the process of saving the host.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
That process instantly kills the symbiote before it releases toxins. It’s too late for that, Sam. I’m sorry. I hate to do this to you, but I should have been dead four years ago. Since then, I’ve been all over the galaxy. I’ve done things most men never dream of.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I’ve heard that before.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
I just wanna know if you’re gonna be happy.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I am.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
Don’t let rules stand in your way.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
What are you talking about?

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
You joined the Air Force because of me.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I love my job.

Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter [clip]:
No. You can still have everything you want.

Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter [clip]:
I do, dad. Really.

David Read:
Oh, come on. She’s engaged to Pete at this point and he’s trying to get her… But he’s trying to say get with the man that you love.

Carmen Argenziano:
That’s a father’s biggest fear, settling for something less than maybe your dreams or what you want or settling for something in life.

David Read:
Or being so busy with work…

Carmen Argenziano:
Or being so busy with work that–

David Read:
… that she doesn’t attain true happiness, and she’s happy. I buy that she’s happy. She’s happy staying busy. I am happy staying busy. But you’re missing the greater point of life. Says I.

Carmen Argenziano:
No. There’s a wonderful… What was it, Joseph Conrad who wrote Hero With A Thousand Faces?

Diana Botsford:
Campbell.

Carmen Argenziano:
Joseph Campbell, forgive me, and just about follow your bliss, follow your dreams. Not settling for something because it’s convenient or it’s comfortable or something. Not depriving yourself of a tremendous future or tremendous life because something’s stopping you, or you’re afraid of something, or you’re unsure of something. Life is a constant process of trying to be the very best you can and trying to fulfill whatever your vision or your concept of what your destiny is. It’s not stopping, it’s not settling, it’s not compromising, and it’s not capitulating. It’s a battle, but it’s a noble battle. It’s something that’s Don Quixote. It’s following those dreams and being the very best you can be, and trying to raise the bar for everyone, trying to really assist humanity and people, and being in the now and doing the best you can, and being the best person you can be.

David Read:
And the ultimate journey. It was Selmak saying that, wasn’t it?

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah.

David Read:
I always wondered about that. How did you do that?

Carmen Argenziano:
I don’t think it was scripted, so…

David Read:
Was that a tough scene to shoot?

Carmen Argenziano:
It was for Sam. It was for Amanda. But she sure got into it. We all knew that that was her swan song for the show and… And she actually had to excuse herself and leave… It’s also an actor’s preparing to make it all personal and everything, and she just went outside the door, and she came back in a real emotional state, and it was really moving. It was very powerful. She really brought herself to it and used whatever the emotion that Amanda felt about us probably never working again as a father and daughter and all that wonderful stuff. All you need is a seed of the emotion as a person, and then you can expand it as the character. But that’s the secret to the work, to making it personal: finding some sort of seed, some sort of personal connection with whatever the character’s experience, and then just melding it into the character’s intentions or the character’s reality. And she does that just naturally. There’s a lot of actors who just have that instinctive gift, and that’s why they register so well on screen. It’s honest. And it’s truthful, and it’s not representing an emotion …

David Read:
Real.

Carmen Argenziano:
It’s a real emotion.

David Read:
So, Stargate’s done good for you.

Carmen Argenziano:
Yeah. It’s the best character, probably the most attention of any character I’ve ever played. And it was a wonderful journey. In retrospect, you always see how it could have been better or more improved, or you could have brought more to the play. That happens. In life, we feel that way a lot in retrospect about what we could have done, should have done, would have done. The opportunities we passed up, liking ourselves a little more. But regrets are a part of life. Fortunately, if you can live with them, thank God, I don’t think any of us here killed anybody or did anything terribly, terribly wrong. Or if we did, we did it in self-defense. So, we can live with our conscience. We can sleep at night. It’s wonderful to be able to sleep at night and know that you gave it your best shot. That you weren’t a destructive, negative force in other people’s lives. That’s important.

David Read:
Carmen, it was a privilege.

Carmen Argenziano:
Thank you, David. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you.

David Read:
Thanks so much for watching this episode, this retrospective interview with Carmen. And thanks to Alan Siler for making the opportunity possible at TimeGate Con in Atlanta in 2010. We’ve got another guest for you lined up today, Joseph Mallozzi, the writer and executive producer of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. We are going through Season Four of the series of SG-1 and also going through his writing process. You can get an idea of the assembly line that went into an episode. So, that’s coming up shortly. I appreciate you sticking around for these shows. My name is David Read. We will see you on the other side.