Shane Meier is no stranger to Stargate, having played Garan in SG-1’s “A Hundred Days” and Neleus in Atlantis’s “Childhood’s End.” Now all grown up, he joins us to talk about his time working on the franchise!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Welcome to Episode 323 of Dial the Gate. The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. I appreciate you tuning in for this one. And for those in the live audience, I apologize. And Shane, this is the second time I have missed a recording, but I think the first one live. Don’t you feel special after 323?

Shane Meier:
I feel honored. I know that you did 323 episodes, and that’s a clap. Hat’s off for you anyway. You’re doing well.

David Read:
Thank you. Gosh. I mean, can you be surprised for a property like Stargate, though, which had such an impact on the Vancouver film industry?

Shane Meier:
Huge.

David Read:
Does that make sense?

Shane Meier:
Yeah, big. You know what it was? That was… Well, the story started [with] how I got involved in that. I worked with Richard Dean a few times. He cast me… Him and his business partner at the time, Henry Winkler, were doing MacGyver.

David Read:
Henry Winkler or Michael Greenburg?

Shane Meier:
Henry Winkler was producer… He was an executive [producer] on MacGyver.

David Read:
He was? I didn’t know that.

Shane Meier:
They had cast me as young MacGyver, and then I had worked with Richard Dean. So, then he cast me in Stargate, the original Stargate, and then Atlantis years later. So, I worked with him dozens of times. I wouldn’t say he’s a good friend of mine, but he knew who I was, and I loved working for him and was kind of the early start to my career in the late 80s, early 90s.

David Read:
I wanna get into Stargate in a little bit here. One of the things that I love about this show now is talking with… You weren’t a child by any means. You were a teenager. But talking with all of the young actors when they were really just getting started in their careers and being able to communicate with them now through this, it has afforded me an opportunity to get both of their perspectives on their world from then and from now. And the question that I always ask right off the top is the acting bug. Did you get it or did your parents give it to you? Was this something like, “Oh, we think that you should do this. You’re handsome.” Or was it like “Mom and dad, please let me do this?”

Shane Meier:
No, it… Well, kind of a little bit of both, because I had just moved to Vancouver from Edmonton. My dad had migrated here because… He had business purposes. And my younger brother went and played hockey and did his thing and sports. My older brother became a lifeguard. So, my mother was, like, ”You need to do something to go meet friends. You need to get out there.” And I was too small to play hockey. I was too small to play most sports. So, I just started doing a little bit of modeling. There’s a Sears catalog model search thing that they do in Canada once a year and I submit… My mom submitted photos of me for that. I ended up winning it, which is crazy. Flew to Toronto, shot it and I was in the Sears catalog later that fall. So, that was kind of the start of it because that got me an agent. I started… I got an agent here in Vancouver that did print and acting and stuff. And so, he just basically said, “Listen, you’ve gotta… Obviously you have a unique look. You play the young boy really well. Let’s get you… See if you could do some speaking commercials. That kind of thing. So, he started submitting me for commercials and then one thing led to another. And that’s actually how I started was I got the… My first audition was for MacGyver. Actually, it was for 21 Jump Street.

David Read:
DeLuise.

Shane Meier:
So, it was Peter DeLuise way back in the day. And this was late 80s and it was one or two lines, but I ended up getting it. I booked it, and then that turned… I auditioned after that for MacGyver. That turned into, I think, two or three episodes of MacGyver. And then it just snowballed from there. Still, the first feature film that I did was The Unforgiven, 1991. We shot that in ‘91 playing Clint Eastwood’s son. So, that was huge. That opened up a ton of doors. That got me… So, it’s very much like… All these young actors always ask me that. “You just get into it and get this big part?” And I’m like, “No, no, no, it’s just baby steps.” It’s one-part leads to another that leads to this and then you’re starring and then you’re just like… It just kind of evolves. So, The Unforgiven turned into Needful Things, which was a huge Stephen King film. And then that turned into another film called Andre, and it all kind of… Like I said, it’s like a stairway and the same with TV and television. The same thing, one or two lines here that turns into a supporting, and then it turns into a star and then a guest star, and then actually your own television series, which I had as well up here in Vancouver.

David Read:
Do you feel in any way that doing all these adult jobs at such a young age… Do you feel that you missed your childhood at all?

Shane Meier:
I don’t think I missed my childhood. I did miss graduations of… When I graduated grade six or whatever was a great fight to go into Junior High. I missed that. There’s little things that… I missed going to camp in the summertime because I was busy shooting The Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood. You think about that now, you’re, like, “Oh my God. Three-time Oscar, four-time Oscar win or whatever.” But back then, I didn’t even know who Clint Eastwood was. I had zero clue. I thought he was just this old man that did a bunch of movies, and my mom was all awestruck with him, but I had no idea who he was.

David Read:
That too.

Shane Meier:
I was a little bit more pissed off that I wasn’t going to camp. So, you miss out on a little bit, but you gained so much… I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I learned so much as a youth on film sets. I still got my high school diploma. I still graduated, I was able to do all that stuff, but I got my own university degree, as they say, traveling down to the United States and shooting a film in Salt Lake City for two months when I was 15 [or] 14. Travelling to Thailand, shooting in Thailand with Jean-Claude Van Damme when I was 17, to shoot for a film called The Quest. So, it took me everywhere, and I learned so much in doing so.

David Read:
It sounds like the tradeoffs were worth it. It sounds like you think that the trade-offs were largely worth it, too.

Shane Meier:
Of course. I did… A lot of people… I think I talking to somebody the other day about it, but I really think I did things in reverse. Normally, you graduate and then you grind making little money until you retire when you’re 50 [or] 67 years old and that’s when you make all your money. But I kind of flipped it. I made all my money when I was younger as a child actor. It’s sort of going the other way because that’s… Not making quite as much money as I used to when I was a kid, but hey, you know what? Again, I wouldn’t trade it in for the world.

David Read:
Do you have kids?

Shane Meier:
No kids. So, I’m saving money there.

David Read:
What I mean is, were they to approach you, would you say, “OK, let’s go, I did it,” or would you have a different perspective now?

Shane Meier:
That’s a tough one. I think I would actually say, when you turn either 16 or 17 or 18, you could make that choice. I think that the early stages, you gotta… That’s when you’re building your persona. And I had a lot of fun but you’re hanging out with all adults. All these films that I was on, I was by far the youngest person. There’s no other young kids there to play with. You go to school offset. You get a tutor that’s your own tutor, which is great for learning, but you’re not playing catch with your buddies, playing street hockey and bugging your friends and younger brother, and throwing stuff, playing hide and seek and all that stuff. So, I would say you gotta… You could do whatever you want. When you turn 16, you make your own choice. You could drive yourself to these auditions. Fill your boots.

David Read:
That makes a lot of sense. Can you share with me a part that profoundly… This is not a leading question. I was, like, “I’ll ask. I ask everyone this question.” Can you share a part from your life that profoundly impacted you in ways that you expected or didn’t expect, that challenged you in ways that you didn’t necessarily anticipate? What would that be?

Shane Meier:
Well, right off the get go, I think it’s arguably the biggest project that I’ve always been attached to, is The Matthew Shepard Story. I knew the story because it had happened, I think, two or three years prior and I read about it in Time magazine or something. Somebody had an article about this poor kid that was beaten and tied to a fence. It’s back when hate crimes were very rare, unlike they are today, and I remember getting the audition from my agent and my agent saying, “This is a good one. Do you know who this is?” I said, “Yeah, I sort of do,” but I just treated it like any other audition. My whole thing was, like, “Get the audition and then on to the next.” You don’t wanna dwell on it because then you start going bananas. You start thinking about, “Did I do this wrong? I wonder if they’re gonna cast this guy? Did I not get it? Do I get a call back? Do I not get a callback?” So, I just kind of do it, “Alright,” on to the next. That one I did, and we got feedback right away from my agent. They said there’s interest in this for sure. They’re gonna shoot it in Toronto so they’re looking for Canadian actors but it’s a second position. It’s a big star. They won’t say who it was. It’s a big star, plays the mother, and then you’re the second lead. So, that’s when it started getting real. I started doing research on Matthew Shepard. I started googling. I did every kind of research that I could for a callback audition, and I had two or three callbacks. But then the actual shooting of the film and talking to Judy Shepard, doing the due diligence and doing all the investigative work with the director and finding out specifics of, “OK, he went… He moved to… So, from Laramie he moved to Denver. Denver is when he got into the trouble.” So, I just started engulfing myself into that world, and being a heterosexual male, it was a complete change for me. I was researching all of that side which is not… It was completely foreign to me. But I was embracing everything and trying to absorb as much as I could as an actor, and I treated it with crazy amount of respect and a crazy amount of professionalism. And then cut to three or four years later when the whole project’s finished, and has that affected me the most out of anything? A 100 percent. With this poor child and what the poor family went through, it’s mind-blowing and I’ll always be attached to that. I’m most proud of the work that I did and it’s a shame that that kind of thing is happening way more often that it should.

David Read:
Were you nervous meeting Judy and was there any part of you once you…? Let me back up. I wanna get to that. Can we spend some time with him?

Shane Meier:
Of course.

David Read:
OK, how do I wanna frame this? David’s drawing a blank for a moment because it’s a big story. Have you ever played a real person before?

Shane Meier:
Good question. I have. I have other movie of the week films that I did that were based on true stories but nothing to this degree.

David Read:
So, this wasn’t total undiscovered country for you. This was like… You’re not shaping a performance completely as you’re also taking in information and incorporating it.

Shane Meier:
Yes. The other films that I was associated with that were based on true events, I didn’t… The person that I was portraying was not murdered. This wasn’t a murder. It was a… I’m thinking of… I can’t even remember the name. Oh, it was [Gone in a Heartbeat] film I did with James Marsden. It’s hilarious. We shot in Calgary, and it was these two kids kidnap a husband and wife, and they actually hold her up for ransom, but they don’t die. They don’t kill anybody. Nobody gets murdered. So, they didn’t really… I don’t even think they went to jail to be honest. I don’t. Somebody might wanna fact check me on that. It wasn’t as serious as this. This poor child was murdered. His family and his mother is still big advocates. He is a martyr in the like… He’s very well-known in the gay community. Everybody knows. Ellen DeGeneres said his eulogy at his funeral. Elton John wrote a song on this guy. This is all the research stuff that I was doing. So, when that dawned on me, that’s when things got super serious and to answer your question, it was, like, “No.” This was an anomaly, and will I ever… I don’t think I’ll ever portray anybody to this caliber again. And that’s fine. I’m super fine with that.

David Read:
The two things that I would, putting myself in your shoes in that situation, be terrified of is meeting mom and after that, the conversation… Well, depending on how the talk went with her. The first one. It may be different but the part of me would be, like, “What if I don’t have it in me to do this young man justice? What if I not fail but what if I just don’t have it to pull off? Did they pick right?” Did that ever occur to you?

Shane Meier:
No.

David Read:
Good.

Shane Meier:
It didn’t. It doesn’t. It’s so bizarre. It’s like if you’re playing in the Stanley Cup playoff and you’re, like, “This is game seven. We’re freaking winning this thing.” You’re not thinking about it anymore. When you dive into a big performance like that… It was a huge one, and I was in… They moved me. I went to Toronto. Stayed in Toronto for seven weeks. I did a bunch of traveling. Then we shot in Calgary for another week after that, traveled with Stockard, and so it was a massive, massive thing. So, I didn’t even… I’m, like, “I need to play… I’m gonna do the best job that I possibly can.” That’s it. That’s the only thing I was thinking of. “If people don’t like the way that I performed it and that a heterosexual man portrayed him, maybe that community, the gay community, is gonna get pissed off at that.” And I just said, “I can’t even think about that. I need to focus on the performance and getting through this stressful seven-week shoot,” which it was because I was literally in, I think, almost 95 percent of the scenes. So, that was my focus, man, “Head down. Do what you’re here to do. Do what they’re paying you to do. That’s perform. And do the best performance you can.”

David Read:
Did Judy see her son in you?

Shane Meier:
Let’s get to that story. So, I had flown to Toronto, and they had… I had my hair pretty much like this, and Matthew Shepard had long hair. So, when I met with Roger, the director, he’s, like, “Shit, we gotta get this guy long hair.” So, I spend five and a half hours at this place in Yorkville getting extensions made.

David Read:
That’s fake?

Shane Meier:
Yeah. It’s fake.

David Read:
Wow. I couldn’t tell.

Shane Meier:
So, I would lay down and then go to sleep at night and wake up and there’d be chunks of hair everywhere. It was hilarious. But once I got the hair… And I’m telling you, Dave, it was nuts. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was, like, “Oh, shit.”

David Read:
“Here he is.”

Shane Meier:
“This is happening.”

David Read:
“He walked in.”

Shane Meier:
I could see the resemblance. I was, like, “Holy shit, this is… I look like him.” Because I had the wardrobe and then I started acting like him. I was hanging out in some of the gay communities in Toronto. So, Judy had flown in the first week of shooting to do… There was a bunch of press that needed to be done with Entertainment Tonight and it was huge. It was as big as we can get. They put us in the same hotel which I didn’t think was the smartest idea. I hadn’t met her yet. U hadn’t talked to her. And I remember talking to the producers and saying, “Listen, can you organize a dinner or something where I could show her that this is Shane. This is not Matthew.” Because if we crossed paths in the lobby or in the elevator, that’s just gonna be absolutely… It’s gonna be heartbreaking for her. Could you imagine that, seeing your…?

David Read:
It’d hit her like a bag of hammers. I know it would. Because you’ve been fashioned at this point to resemble someone she lost tragically.

Shane Meier:
Exactly. And five years [or] four years ago… Not even. Three years ago, or something like that. So, I was pretty adamant about that. Well, guess what happened? I knew it would happen. I was coming… I was going to the gym or something like that in the lobby and I see an SUV pull up in the door and a bunch of people get out and I walk out to go to the gym, and she walks right past me. Right outside. And I’m, like, literally lost my breath, and we stopped and turned around and I said to her, “Judy, I’m so sorry. This was not meant to happen. This was not… We were supposed to…” I couldn’t even get it out but she just kind of almost teared up. She basically did tear up and she held me, and I said, “We are gonna do justice. This is gonna be a great film and I’m gonna do as best job as I possibly can, and I’m honored and privileged to play your son because he meant a world to a lot of people, and I’m gonna do the best.” And she had a tear in her eye, and she gave me a big hug. But she’s a doll, “You are gonna be amazing,” and she goes, “We’re doing dinner tomorrow, right?” And I was, like, “Yeah, I think that was supposed to be how we were supposed to meet.” Anyways, it was awkward, and I ended up… I think I tore a strip off of somebody in the production office for that happening but that was a development of a great relationship and we’re still friends. She’s my buddy. She calls me all the time, text messages me all the time to see how things are doing. She messaged me with all the weird presidential stuff going down south and all the tariff stuff going up north here and she says, “Can I still be friends with my best Canadian friend?” So, I said, “You’re more than welcome to.”

David Read:
What performance… What was the hardest day to shoot?

Shane Meier:
Mentally, the start of the film.

David Read:
Mentally, yeah. And if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s available for free on a number of different websites. Just google The Matthew Shepard Story, 2002. You go right for the jugular right away. This is, like, “We’re not gonna lead our way to this iceberg,” and iceberg immediately, “This is what happened to this kid. We’re gonna portray it right from the get-go.” And even for 2002, it’s pretty darn… Especially for 2002, it’s pretty darn intense. And the director did not shy away from that.

Shane Meier:
They went all out. They wrote a great opening piece there that just leaves your jaw on the ground and I think that’s why they got all the praise. I think they might have been… Correct me if I’m wrong here, too, but I think they got an Emmy. They got an award for writing. That was a tough scene to do. We shot it a night scene, obviously, so you gotta start at 11-12 o’clock at night. We shoot right to 7:30 a.m. in the morning. But you’re physically getting bound. You’re getting dragged out of a truck and then bound to a tree and then all the whipping and stunt.

David Read:
Did you get hurt at all?

Shane Meier:
My neck, just little whiplash stuff. You’re doing that for four and a half to five hours while we’re pouring fake blood all over. And freezing. It’s cold in Toronto. We shot it in, I think it was April or May, so it wasn’t even spring really there. So, it was cold. And that was it. That was a tough night, man. I remember going back to the hotel at 8 a.m. in the morning, 9-10 a.m. in the morning. I got to be buddies with the door guy and he just, “Hey, Shane.” And I said, “Don’t call me Mr. Meier. I hate it.” He was just, like, 27-year-old kid, and they’re calling me Mr. Meier, “Uh-uh, they call my dad that. That’s fine.” I just told him, “I had a long a day. I need some sleep,” and I just went upstairs and decompressed for a few hours. That was a tough one.

David Read:
And the premiere?

Shane Meier:
Premiere was awesome. The thing is, Roger… So, we did the ADR, which is the voice dialogue recording we need to do. We did that in Montreal for some reason. I think because that’s where Roger was from or Roger was living. He’s the director. So, I flew to Montreal to do ADR for a few days, and he gave me a copy, which is crazy. He gave me a DVD, and he said, “You did a…” I remember him looking at me. He goes, “You did an amazing job, and you should be extremely proud of yourself.” And I gave him a hug, said goodbye to him, came home, and I think it was November-ish. And I was flying back to Saskatchewan where I’m originally from. And I told my family, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, I said, “We’re gonna do a little mini premiere at my aunt’s house,” she’s got a big little projector, “and you guys are gonna be the first audience to see this. I think Alliance Atlantis would probably lose their mind if they knew that I was doing that like six weeks before the actual premiere.

David Read:
This is pre-social media. You’re good.

Shane Meier:
I premiered it to them and my mom never… My mom couldn’t watch it. She still has never seen it. Never seen it.

David Read:
How did you feel about that? How do you feel about that?

Shane Meier:
Just can’t watch it. She says it’s too dark. Not only because it’s her son now but also the story behind it. She was very familiar with Matthew Shepard. So, she knew who that was. So, she just, like, “I saw your clips and the stuff,” but there’s stuff she doesn’t need to see. There’s a lot of scenes that she just won’t watch. But the rest of my family watched it, and it was a pretty solemn night. Everybody was pretty quiet, and their jaws were on the ground, and I think there was a few tears shed, for sure.

David Read:
You did amazing.

Shane Meier:
The actual premiere, I was living in LA at the time and went to that. I don’t do a lot of red-carpet stuff, but I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and I went with a friend of mine, and we went down there and did the whole red-carpet thing, and I felt important and special. I put on a cool suit and watched it with a small audience. Really cool incident was after. So, we had Jodie Foster there. Obviously, Jodie Foster was friends with Stockard Channing and Roger Spottiswoode, the director, as well, and Goldie Hawn. So, she got invited and after, when everybody’s mingling out in the lobby, she figured out where I was and went up to me and gave me a big bear hug. I think there’s… I know there’s a photo. There you go. So, there’s four extremely powerful women right there. You got Judy in the middle, [Goldie] on the right, Stockard, and Jodie Foster. Amazing women.

David Read:
What a performance.

Shane Meier:
And what they all… But when Jodie Foster came… I couldn’t even… I love Jodie Foster. She came up and talked to me and she said, “You’re amazing. That was a great job. Where do you live? Are you from here?” And I’m, like, “I live in Vancouver but I’m here now.”

David Read:
What vindication. After shelling out that performance. You’re not… A typical person cannot pull this off. They really had to… Not only you have to look like him, but you have to make people believe that you’re him. People who knew him.

Shane Meier:
That was my focus. Do head down and as I said, from the start, do the best job that you can, and you’ll get some feedback. You’ll get rewarder for it. That’s all I could do.

David Read:
Powerful stuff. Well done.

Shane Meier:
Thank you.

David Read:
Let’s go a couple of years before. Stargate SG-1. A Hundred Days is one of my favorite episodes. It is controversial among fandom because there are a lot of Jack Sam relationship shippers out there, and this is one where it’s almost all Rick and the team is just trying to claw their way to him for the entire episode. Tell me about the Edorans. Tell me about Garan. Tell me about getting this part.

Shane Meier:
Like I said, it was… I knew that Rick probably had a say in it. I don’t know this for sure but at that time I was pretty hot in the 12- to 16-year-old category. I remember… To be honest, I don’t remember the audition, but I do remember working on it and working with Rick again. It was working with Rick. And he’s great. He’s hilarious. He’s funny. He loved Vancouver. He wasn’t like some actors that come to Vancouver for nine months and they talk shit about it. He loved it. He loved Vancouver. He’s a hockey guy. That’s what my MacGyver days with him were. His flashback scenes were when he was a young hockey player. When MacGyver was the hockey player. He’s a big hockey guy and he just loves Vancouver. Anyways, we shot in Vancouver. It was, I think, a 10-day shoot or something. I had with a good friend of mine… Actually, a good friend of my sister, Julie Patzwald. I don’t know if you recognize that but the two Stargates I did, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, well, Julie Patzwald, who was a dear friend of mine, she is in both of them. She’s playing my…

David Read:
I didn’t know she’s in the other one, too.

Shane Meier:
It’s unbelievable. So, God rest her soul, we lost her a number of years ago, but she was a real special girl. And she’s a local. She was a local actress. And again, I went to high school with her sister. So, very close connection there. We had great chemistry. So, when you sent me the show to watch, I was watching it the other night, and I had a tear in my eye because we lost her way, way, way too young. And she’s such a great performer and we worked well together on screen. So, it was fun working with her. It was fun working with Rick. And I agree with you. It was like that. I didn’t watch a lot of the Stargate, the first Stargate. I didn’t know there was a lot of relationship stuff going but I always thought that this was the first love thing that they had going.

David Read:
One where he fell in love, yes. Married against his will, no.

Shane Meier:
So, that’s what… When I rewatched it the other night, I go, “Oh, this is actually very sweet.” Because he’s like super… He was emotional in a couple of the scenes and that’s something that you just didn’t see from him very often.

David Read:
And it was an interesting choice, although the opposite choice would have caused more attention in the script and more focus to be placed on the two of you’s relationship, but it was… I always recognize the fact that Garan’s setup is as not being resentful of Jack for basically moving into his home. He’s already, when there… Before the trouble starts, the fire rain starts, he already is imitating Jack in terms of certain phrases and everything else.

Shane Meier:
He’s, like, “Who is this cool guy? That’s cool.” Whatever the line was. But you could tell that there was some admiration and some… “This guy’s awesome. This is great.”

David Read:
It’s a great show. It’s a great hour for Rick and he had a great supporting cast. I’m still trying to get Michele on because in so many ways, it’s her show. The story really focuses on her.

Shane Meier:
She did a fantastic job. Again, the late Julie… I watched the other one, the other episode you sent me. I’m blanking which one with the name.

David Read:
Childhood’s End.

Shane Meier:
Childhood’s End. There you go. Much smaller part. I remember re-watching that one going, “Where am I? Am I even in this thing?” But there’s a backstory to that, too. The director was… I had worked with the director previously.

David Read:
David Winning.

Shane Meier:
David’s good. And still a good friend of mine. Great guy. I worked with him on Jack London’s Call of the Wild. I played the lead actor on Call of the Wild. So, he directed an episode of that. The he just said, “Hey, do you wanna do this? Not the biggest part but you know what? It’s gonna get you employed and it’s gonna get you hanging out with me again.” I said, “Yeah, why not, man.” So, another five- or seven-day shoot with another friend of mine and had a lot of fun.

David Read:
Are you a sci-fi fan? Do you find yourself being drawn to stories like this?

Shane Meier:
I do. I never really got into the… Stargate SG-1, I did, especially the film and then the first few episodes… The first few seasons of the TV series. But then, I think, they… What did they do? 12, 13 seasons?

David Read:
They did 10 seasons of SG-1. 214 [episodes].

Shane Meier:
“That’s enough.”

David Read:
“Guys, where you’re going, I can’t follow that much. I have hockey to do.”

Shane Meier:
I am a sci-fi… I do love… That’s the joy about these streaming services. You get on Netflix the other night or Hulu or whatever, Paramount, and just type in “sci-fi,” and holy shit, there’s a plethora. The one I’m watching right now is an Argentinian sci-fi thing.

David Read:
What is it called?

Shane Meier:
Different country. I can’t even pronounce it. Starts with an E. It just came out last week. It’s about the world ending and it snows like it’s… The snow is toxic, and it kills people instantly. It’s actually quite funny. But again, you can get into any… All these countries are putting them out, like, “OK, look at Romania.” They’ve got a sci-fi Netflix section and you’re gonna find something in there that’s worth watching.

David Read:
Eternaut.

Shane Meier:
Yeah, that is it. Eternaut.

David Read:
Interesting. Very good. I love the tapestry of science fiction because it allows us to really hold a mirror to the audience and say, “This could be you given this set of circumstances. Will you take my hand and let me show you how?” And in one hand, it’s very much… You have to really be careful of the balance between being too preachy but sharing a message at the same time. It doesn’t have to, but I think that that is what sci-fi does best because you can any kind of genre and couch it in some kind of an element that is foreign enough that the audience won’t necessarily feel like they’re being beat over the head with it.

Shane Meier:
What does that beautifully is Deus Ex Machina, or Deus Ex Machina, however you wanna say it.

David Read:
Deus Ex Machina?

Shane Meier:
Yes.

David Read:
Are you talking about the [one] with female robot?

Shane Meier:
Yeah.

David Read:
Ex Machina.

Shane Meier:
That’s right. So, you’re like, “That can happen and that is happening.” This incredible robot that looks very real and it’s… You’re exactly right. You could sit… You could be in that world. Just let your mind go on this little journey and that’s what, like you said, the cool thing about sci-fi.

David Read:
What do you think about how quickly AI is moving? Do you think we’re ready?

Shane Meier:
It’s nuts, man. Especially in the film and TV world but it’s happening everywhere. I’m in the retail world now and you look at everything from restaurants. They’re all starting to… There’s restaurants that don’t have waiters or anything. They’re robots that come up and drop your food off.

David Read:
Droids.

Shane Meier:
It’s happening. We just gotta… It’s bizarre. You gotta either embrace it or just… My mother doesn’t even know how to work an iPhone.

David Read:
It’s my father. But the stuff that’s coming into the entertainment industry… I just saw a clip a couple of days ago from, I think it’s the second Venom, and I haven’t seen them, where these visual effects guys analyze the material, and it’s clear they’re now using AI, not to create, but to augment the visual effects. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie but there’s a scene where he has tendrils and he’s grabbing everything around him. And they’ve thrown this… They had to… The guy has speculated. They’ve thrown this thing at an AI to add all these thousands and thousands of tendrils in the shot as he’s either dying or transforming and they’ve instructed it to just be aware of the collision in the environment. Because an artist sitting there and putting that together, it would have taken hundreds of man hours. And they throw it at a computer, and you look at it and they’re going, “I can’t believe how real this looks. It’s wild.”

Shane Meier:
It is wild. I think you just gotta embrace it. It sucks. Again, I’m not much in the film world these days because it is gonna take jobs. Somebody told me that there’s a film being made in Canada, in Vancouver, that was AI written. ChatGPT wrote it. It’s, like, “Hey, write a film about a guy that moves to a mountain town and falls in love with a girl but then ends up witnessing a murder,” and next thing you know, “Boom,” 90-page script written.

David Read:
But it still can’t generate novelty yet. We still have that edge. It doesn’t dream. Yet. So, you’re in retail now. How often are you acting and are you more selective about the things that you consider doing?

Shane Meier:
That Matthew Shepard thing is tough to top. And I was always up in that thing where you wanna always do better than your last gig, whether it’s a bigger part or a better project or a better director or whatnot. So, there’s always reasoning for the way that my career had moved. And I got to that kind of ceiling with the Matthew Shepard thing. That was a tough one to be better. I couldn’t do anything more than that unless I moved to Los Angeles [to] become a full-time… Just head down, trying act down there. I did to that for a little bit but then I got cast in something that shot back in Vancouver, which was this Canadian TV show, which got crazy critical acclaim, called Intelligence, which was a friend of mine that produced and created that. So, after…

David Read:
It sounds sci-fi.

Shane Meier:
No, it’s based in reality. It’s actually a really good… You’d love it. It’s a really good program. I think you can get it on Netflix now.

David Read:
I’ll check it out. Intelligence?

Shane Meier:
Two seasons and it’s based on Canadian, well, Vancouver drug cartels and the smuggling of marijuana and dope all over the borders and CSIS, how CSIS is tied and involved. It’s actually… And it’s very accurate. In fact, that’s the… The rumor was that’s the reason why we got cancelled because it was just too accurate and CBC is obviously government-run. So, they decided to pull the plug as they say.

David Read:
“We’ve done our job too well, guys. Thanks. No Season Three.” That’s terrific.

Shane Meier:
Beautifully written. Beautifully performed. In fact, right there, that’s basically a Canadian Emmy award.

David Read:
Congratulations.

Shane Meier:
It was great, So, anyway, back to the point of this. I didn’t… I was, like, “I’m not really…” I wasn’t getting submitted for stuff that I wanted to do, that I was really passionate about, so I took a little step back and got into this other world. And it’s opened up a completely… It’s opened up a more of an entrepreneurial business side of my brain that I’ve never opened before where it’s, like, “How do we do this? How do we buy? How do we hire? How do we fire? How do we project? How do we open store?” I opened my own store. I financed, basically like producing a film, financed and opened the store, found a location, gutted it, renovated it, bought the supplies, bought the inventory, and opened a store, and had a store for five years.

David Read:
It’s not still around?

Shane Meier:
Recently cancelled it. Sorry, “Cancelled it.” I recently shut it down post-COVID. The point is that it taken a little bit of that artistic hunger that I had and put it into a different business model.

David Read:
The creative people have a drip that they can’t shut off.

Shane Meier:
It’s very true.

David Read:
It has to come out somewhere. And I think it’s interesting from your perspective because having achieved true success in your craft so young, for other actors, I would think, who didn’t wanna do anything else that would a huge trap that they couldn’t get out of. But for you, it’s, like, “We’re gonna pivot now. I’m thankful to have had that. Now, what else I got in the tank? Because I still got plenty of tank left.”

Shane Meier:
You’re 100 percent right, and you’re the first person to actually literally say it out loud and it sound… You nailed it on the head. I see a lot of… I love them all. They’re all good friends of mine. They’re extremely talented but a lot of Vancouver actors just are in that spiral of just doing one or two projects, and now, with the economy and everything the way that it is, maybe one spot on a show every couple of years. And maybe they have a family and a car payment and a mortgage and kids to pay for. It’s, like, “How do you sustain yourself?” It’s tough. So, you’re right. You take that creative, artistic information and put it into something that’s not even in the arts. Retail isn’t really arts. A musician can go from writing music to maybe writing poetry or a painter can maybe stop painting paintings and start writing novels or something like that. Mine is, like, “Alright, I’m gaining the knowledge about how to produce and make money really and put it into another business.”

David Read:
But you’re still creating for yourself and others. You and I are very similar that way. We’re very pragmatic. I have friends who are, like, “Well, this is what I went to school for.” It’s, like, “Yeah, but you need to it. You can’t just live with your mother forever. Don’t you feel bad about that in some way, shape or form?” You’re pragmatic, you make it work, and you recognize that you will find your way.

Shane Meier:
The hustle doesn’t get lost. I’m always, like, “OK. What’s that? Hey, we got those jackets coming in. What else? Oh, my God. I forgot. I didn’t order enough jeans. I gotta triple the amount of denim.” So, you’re budgeting for this, and your brain is constantly moving. It’s just moving at a different pace.

David Read:
That’s it. You can’t teach drive to someone. You can’t teach the go-getter nature of someone. That really is the biggest difference when it comes right down to it between someone who’s gonna have lifelong success and someone who’s just gonna spin in the mud.

Shane Meier:
And that’s full circle to what you started the conversation with. Would you tell your child, if you had a child… When I was younger, it did give me a sense of, “OK. I’m doing something and I’m getting paid for [it]. So, I don’t wanna spend my money.” You gotta make sure that that money is there for when you wanna [or] when you need to spend it, or when you’re older and you have to spend it. So, it gave me a business sense at a very, very young age and I’ll be forever grateful for that, for sure. I was paying my own cell phone own cell phone bill when cell phones just came out.

David Read:
They were this big.

Shane Meier:
Those Motorola things. I had one. And I was 14 [or] 13, and I was in Grade 8 with this big thing. But I had to pay the bill. My mom showed me how to do it and so be it. Now, it’s just evolved into this completely different ball game.

David Read:
Oh, God. No sexting on the big Motorola phones. I’ve got a couple of fan question for you. You have a little bit more time?

Shane Meier:
Yeah.

David Read:
Peace Rider. The RDA stuff was answered so Peace Rider apologizes. I massaged this into something else. Any takeaways from working with Clint Eastwood? Anything that stuck with you?

Shane Meier:
Plenty. First of all, extreme… Didn’t know who the hell he was. Like I said, my mom… I knew who Morgan Freeman was because I was a big fan of his. I’d seen him in all these films. But I was 12 at the time, or 11. I didn’t know spaghetti westerns. I did not know what the hell that was. But a true gentleman. My mom was a little starstruck with him and he treated her with the utmost [respect]. First thing he said to her was, “You checked into the hotel OK? Did you get… The driver was there? Did you get your guys per diem? Awesome. Great. So, we’re just gonna go over here with your son and we’re gonna do this scene over here. You got everything over here. Did you get some coffee?” Just a sweetheart. A true, true professional. He doesn’t like… The thing about it, he uses the same crew. So, the crew came to us. They came from California to Calgary.

David Read:
That’s loyalty.

Shane Meier:
It’s like working with the same… You’re on the same hockey team. It’s amazing. Everybody knew each other. They don’t use radios. There was no radio [or] loud walkie talkie because that gets kind of annoying.

David Read:
Smoke signals? How do you pull that? “Hey, you, Clint!”

Shane Meier:
They had earpieces and [if] there was any loud talking, it had to be offset. Now, set, you can only get to by walking. We had… We drove… Out shuttles would drop us off about, I don’t know, half a mile away. We’d have to walk in because he wanted that authenticity. So, that’s another reason why they probably don’t have the radios. There’s no smoking. There’s no… It’s very quiet. It’s very organized. True professional.

David Read:
Make it as much period piece as possible.

Shane Meier:
For sure.

David Read:
That’s wild.

Shane Meier:
You gotta be dressed.

David Read:
Did you find it helped the performance?

Shane Meier:
Yeah.

David Read:
Because you were there.

Shane Meier:
He shot half the rehearsals. I remember him saying… He goes, “Shane, do me a favor.” And this is back when the camera… Let’s say the camera’s here. He would be sitting on a chair. There’s no video village. There’s no computers. This is 1990-91. And he would call the role by the… He would stand by the camera. But half the time the set deck guys are in there moving the pigs or doing something, and he would just say, “Hey, Shane…” And he would just flick the camera on, and he would record the rehearsals. He goes, “Do me a favor and bring that pig, that last pig, bring him over on the side here and put him in that corral,” and they would just film it while I was doing it. No, it wasn’t part of the scene. He was just getting that and then he ended up using it. He used that in the film, which is crazy. True artist.

David Read:
Raj Luthra. Raj, I’m gonna take part of your idea and move it forward. Did you take any… Did you manage to snag any souvenirs from either [of] the Stargate shows, and what do you feel about the story that was Childhood’s End that was these kids sacrificing themselves because they think that it’s the only way to keep the Wraith away? Pretty intense story. Martin Gero, who wrote it, he and I were close for years and this was his story.

Shane Meier:
Very intense. I just rewatched, like I told you, a couple of nights ago, and oh my God. Some of the dialogue is very… And the way that… I’m blanking on the actor’s name, but he did it.

David Read:
David Hewlett?

Shane Meier:
Yeah. He’s, like… They were talking about what happens when you reach that, and then he’s, like, “I sacrificed myself.” It’s just dark but very sincere. It’s very intense. So, rewatching it 20 years later was very jaw-dropping, like, “Holy shit.”

David Read:
Courtenay. I think we were talking about Courtenay [J.] Stevens who played Keras. Courtenay was great.

Shane Meier:
Phenomenal. Played it very beautifully. And did I take anything away? I don’t know. I used to do a thing where I kept either the call sheets or the scripts. I think I still have the script. I’m pretty positive about that. But I didn’t take anything. They had… All the props were really cool. Like the bow and arrow things and all that.

David Read:
The Zero Point Module. You see this? You recognize that? That’s a replica.

Shane Meier:
Beautiful. That’s awesome.

David Read:
There’s some… I really have enjoyed this time with you. Again, I apologize for coming in so late, but it means a lot to have you here. I’m really thankful that we got to explore Shepard’s character. Folks, if you wanna go to that website, it is matthewshepard.org. SHEPARD. Erasing hate since 1998 so it’s 25 years now.

Shane Meier:
Isn’t that unbelievable?

David Read:
Some people… We never know… One of my quotes, and I borrow from Stargate, is make good ripples. Because of the puddle.

Shane Meier:
Great.

David Read:
And when you go out into the world and you make a glance, a passing glance at someone, you never know how it’s gonna impact them later. So important to make good ripples when you go out into the world, as best as you can because you’re not…

Shane Meier:
Sometimes, it just takes a smile. Just that. Somebody could be having a really shit day and if you just smile and nod and acknowledge, that’s all it takes, and that could really affect, like you said, a ripple effect, really affect them.

David Read:
I appreciate our time together. This has meant a lot to me.

Shane Meier:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it.

David Read:
I’m gonna wrap up the show on this side.

Shane Meier:
Perfect.

David Read:
Be well.

Shane Meier:
Thank you.

David Read:
Shane Meier, everyone. Garan and Neleus in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. My name is David Read. You’re watching Dial the Gate. We have a hell of a season moving forward for you here. We’ve got… If my web browser will co-operate with me, and it’s not. OK, very good. We’ve got a number of shows coming up for you, but you can check out dialthegate.com and hopefully have better luck than I have. We have a fan episode coming up with, I believe, Fused Film. His name is Kevin Coll. He’s an old friend of mine. We’re gonna be connecting together in a pre-recording episode. Brenda James, William deVry and Craig Veroni are all heading your way next weekend. And if you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a lot to me if you clicked that Like button. It does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. And clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. My tremendous thanks to my producers, Kevin, Antony and Linda. My moderators, Antony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marsha, Raj and Jakub. Welcome aboard, Jakub. And Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb who keeps dialthegate.com up and running. That’s all I’ve got for you this extended weekend. I hope you’ve enjoyed the special Monday show. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I will see you on the other side.