What wouldn’t you do to save the life of your child? Actor Steven Culp played this dilemma brilliantly as Henry Wallace in “Miller’s Crossing.” He joins us to discuss this episode and his larger career!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Dial the Gate. The Stargate Oral History Project. I’m David Read: Thanks for hanging around with us all this week. It is my privilege to welcome someone I have admired for a long time, actor Steven Culp. Hello, sir. How are you?

Steven Culp:
I’m good. Thank you very much.

David Read:
You have no idea what’s been happening in the world of Stargate, right?

Steven Culp:
I haven’t a clue. No. What’s going on?

David Read:
This past Wednesday, I and my partner of 25, 30 years announced to the world that the fourth Stargate series is in development by Amazon for Prime Video.

Steven Culp:
Cool.

David Read:
So, the entire fandom is just absolutely… The apple cart is just knocked over and we’re just trying to pick everything up. It’s like, “OK, now what’s gonna happen?” So, it’s all very fresh to everybody and who knows what the future is gonna hold? So, we’re very excited right now and we’re thrilled to have you here.

Steven Culp:
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

David Read:
When you look… How long did you know… What age were you when you realized that this was what you wanted to do with your life? What was that impetus? What was that inciting incident?

Steven Culp:
I don’t know if there was an inciting incident. I think I pretty much wanted… I think I knew I wanted to do something all my life, ever since I was a little kid and I would imagine myself… When I was… One of my earliest memories is dancing in front of the turned off TV screen so that I could see myself dancing on television. And I was always interested in doing something. I think I thought I was gonna be a writer for a really long time. When I was a kid, I was really into comic books, and so I imagined myself as maybe writing for comic books. And then, as I got into high school, I learned how to play guitar, and I started playing guitar in little bars and stuff around where I lived and working on writing my own songs and stuff. And then I sort of fell into doing theater when I was later in high school, and then specifically in college where I started to really work with other student actors and stuff like that. And, at my college, there was a lot of room for somebody who wasn’t a theater major to come in and do stuff. They had a program for a player writing program, so you’d have your premier theater, they called it, and they were usually one acts and you would… They’d have an evening of these new plays that you would do. And then they had their main stage productions, and they had director’s workshops and there was just a lot of things to do. And I think that’s where I realized, out of all the things that I was thinking about doing, acting seemed to be the one I was most suited for. Although then I decided to go to graduate school. And I went to the Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and I got an MFA, and I got up there and I realized that I didn’t know squat about acting and I spent a long time thinking that I’d made this huge mistake and what was I gonna do with my life? And it took about a year and a half for the work. I had some good things happen along the way and some negative things, but the work itself really started to click in right about the middle of my second year. And then I was off and running, pretty much. And, just for the sci-fi connection, our school was one of many schools, Yale and Juilliard and NYU, et cetera, that would do these things at the end of your graduating year called The League auditions. It was the League of Professional Training Schools. And you would do this showcase of scenes for all these agents and casting directors in New York. And Brandeis was the wicked, redheaded stepchild of this. We went up after Yale and Yale finished their presentation and half the room left.

David Read:
Oh, God. “Thanks, guys. Thanks. See ya.”

Steven Culp:
So, it went pretty well but my movement teacher and very talented woman who directed me in several plays at Brandeis was Cheryl G. McFadden, better known as Gates McFadden, better known as Dr. Crusher on… This was way before Star Trek: The Next Generation. And she was one of the — Not everybody was really tuned into what was going on in New York when I was at Brandeis, but she was. And when I got back from the Leagues, she said, “OK, Steve. How did it go?” And I said, “Well, I got, nibbles from so and so and so and so and so.” And she said, “You need to go down there tomorrow and start follow up on this.” So, as soon as I got a chance, I took the bus down from Massachusetts, I started meeting with a lot of these agents who were all very encouraging. I went off to Vermont to do Shakespeare that summer, and then by the time I got back into town, they’d signed everybody that they wanted to sign. But good luck. But except for one guy, except for one agent, a man named Paul Decker, who did soap operas. And he said, “I just…” He was part of a bigger agency, but his department was soaps. And he didn’t make any pretentions about it, he just said, “I wanna send you out for some soaps.” And so, I took him less seriously. But he was the last guy I called after a couple weeks of being rejected and he’s like, “Steve, where you been? I’ve been waiting for you to call.” And he immediately sent me out on an audition for Another World, which was a soap opera at the time where I read for the casting director. Then, next week, the casting director brought me in for the producers. Then I got a screen test out of that. And so a few weeks later, I’m doing a screen test for Another World. I didn’t get that job, but a month later Paul called and said, “Another World wants to give you a three-month contract do this sort of character. This nice young guy who turns into psycho baby kidnapper. And it’s just three months.” So, it was really fortunate for me because I got to New York in September and by the winter, I had an agent and a job. And I’ve never… I’ve had my ups and downs since then, but I’ve never really looked back. So, that’s the long answer.

David Read:
Thank you for it. The thing that I pull out of that is, you probably went through a fair bit of time there where you had some serious imposter syndrome. It sounds like trying to figure out what it was that you want. Or did you not look at it that way? I would have in your place, if it took me a year and a half for it to click, I would’ve been like, “I’m not sure if this is gonna work.”

Steven Culp:
I don’t think I ever had…

David Read:
“Am I misinterpreting that?”

Steven Culp:
I had my own neuroses.

David Read:
I see.

Steven Culp:
I don’t think I needed impostor syndrome. Mine was more like… I had a tremendous amount of self-consciousness and stage fright.

David Read:
I see. “I’m too visible.”

Steven Culp:
Performing could be really joyful, but the time leading up to that could be really fraught and I had a lot of insecurity about that. So, I don’t know if it was imposter syndrome, but I had insecure… I didn’t wanna fail in front of people, which is a drawback, I think. If you really wanna get somewhere as an actor, you gotta be willing to put it on the line. But then when I was at Brandeis, I had a few really very challenging roles, especially in my third year there. And what I developed, this personal technique that I carried with me into the professional world which was, I really…When I was crafting a role, making choices, I did things that required a lot of commitment from me, that required me to really be there and be committed, and choices that were bold and that I had to do full-out. And I used to tell myself, I used to say this thing to myself, when I was thinking about things I was gonna do, I’d think, “OK, if they don’t like this, they’re not gonna just not like it. They’re gonna hate it.” You know what I mean? No half…

David Read:
It’s pacifying.

Steven Culp:
And so, it was just a way of psyching myself up and making me feel like, “OK, I gotta commit.” Because I didn’t wanna hang back and be questioning and insecure about everything I was doing. So, I really carried that with me when I got to New York, and it colored a lot of the… Especially the early years of working. And then I got… Then I mellowed out about it a little bit. I didn’t make that demand on my… Because I was always looking for something in a play I was doing. Moments where I was really just taking a tremendous risk and putting it all on the line. And I realized, “You know what? Not every play is… You can’t do the same thing every time. You can’t demand that of yourself from every piece of material.” So, learned to take the material on its own terms. And I’ve been at this for over 40 years, and I’m still learning. I’m still learning that stuff. Still developing.

David Read:
The flexibility of your work is so wild to watch. The thing that I most know you from is Major Hayes in Enterprise. Star Trek is in my DNA since four years old. Three or three and a half. And this season comes along that has upended everything that we’ve seen on this franchise before. We have a whole season-long arc. And really, you were one of the key players of this thing, where there’s an external force that’s threatened all of us. Your team has come in here, the Military Assault Command, the MACOs, onto Enterprise into a perilous region of space to do some dirty work, to do what has to be done. And I was very — In this future where everything’s idyllic and perfect, what kind of a guy are they gonna bring in to do this when we… Because Starfleet is functionally very militaristic, but they are not military. And when you bring in actual military in play in that, how is that gonna play against some of the other characters? Particularly Dominic Keating who played Reed. He’s the security guy on board. He is chief of security. This guy is in his space. How is that gonna play? You gotta do an arc over several episodes of that season. I loved that character.

Steven Culp:
Good, I’m so glad.

David Read:
I come from a huge military family, and I completely related to this guy where it was like, “Yeah, he’s in this situation where he’s got someone else pushing back against his authority. He’s here to do his job, but in there, how far can you push someone before you know what? You keep on pushing me. If I’m defending myself, at what point do I push you back to the point where I start enjoying it?” And it breaks out into a fight in the corridors at one point in the show. Your arc from beginning to end was fantastic.

Steven Culp:
Oh,well thanks.

David Read:
Was that as rewarding as it looked to watch?

Steven Culp:
Was it… I’m sorry?

David Read:
Was it as rewarding as what it looked like to watch, to play that from beginning to end? A true finishing arc.

Steven Culp:
I thought you asked if it was as rewarding for me to watch, and that’s always dicey, watching…

David Read:
Yes. No, to perform.

Steven Culp:
…my own work. Well, that was… A, when I originally went in to read for it, they were talking about 10 episodes and I wished I’d gotten a few more because I felt like the way it went, I showed up in the premier and then I did one episode where I was really… Felt like I was the red shirt or whatever.

David Read:
The Vulcan epis[ode].

Steven Culp:
Where they go to the planet…

David Read:
And then they knock him off.

Steven Culp:
…and then the next time you see me, Reed and I are like this, and we have this fight, and I wished we had a few more episodes to build up to that. I would really have liked that because it was supposed to be 10 episodes and it just became five because as they’re writing the season and shaping the season, things just take their own shape. It was interesting about that role, and I know I’ve talked about this at conventions before, at Star Trek conventions, but that role was… For me, I was trying out a different way of working. I had just done a role in this David Mamet film called Spartan, and it was really just… The phone rang and it was my agent. I got offered the job. I’d never read for anything, and it’s just a scene or two of this FBI guy who’s being interrogated… Or secret service guy who’s being interrogated. And Mamet has this real reputation, and I wanted to get on his wavelength before I got there, so I picked up this book that he wrote about acting called True and False. A I have actor friends who wanna tar and feather him for this book. I loved it. There’s a great quote on my copy from Alec Baldwin, and it says something like, “I disagree with everything Mr. Mamet says and I encourage you to devour every word.” And that’s exactly how I felt about it. Because he doesn’t really know acting, and there was a lot of stuff I disagreed with, but there was a lot of stuff he said that I thought was really spot on. And one of the things that… And I took his technique that he was talking about in the book, and I applied it to my work on Spartan. Let me know if I’m getting too much into the acting weeds.

David Read:
No, keep going. If you’ve got some time, sure.

Steven Culp:
But basically, when you’re working on, especially a play, but also in TV and movie, you’ve got the arc of the character that you’re trying to find, the story that leads you through as the actor. The story that you’re telling. You do a lot of research. You do a lot of backstory on your character, and you build up this thing. And Mamet’s like, “All that’s wasted effort. Just pay attention to the words. Say the words. Play an action that is in keeping with what the writer is writing, and that will become your character.” And I thought… And I had just done some work that I thought, “Maybe I could’ve used a little bit of this on that.” So, Major Hayes came along and I thought, “Well, this is a perfect one to experiment with that.” So, I didn’t do a lot of what I normally did. I really just tried to, “What’s it telling me on the page? What’s my action in the scene? Let that carry me forward, and that’s gonna tell me who my character is.” And I thought it was perfect for Hayes because Hayes is so much the job. The man is the job. He’s very self-effacing, in the sense that it’s not about him. It’s never about him. It’s about the job, the job, the job. And even when he is getting into a fight with Malcolm, it’s, “Why won’t you let me do my job?”

David Read:
That’s it. He sees himself as an instrument.

Steven Culp:
He really sees himself as an instrument, and very military in that sense. “Jump this high. How high would you like me to jump, sir?” That’s the kind of guy that he is. Now, looking back on it, I think I could’ve done a little more of my normal work, and I think he would’ve… He might have popped a little more. Sometimes when I watch it, I feel like it’s too restrained. It’s too held back. But it was a totally different energy for me. And for that reason, it’s an interesting thing for me to watch. I can’t really tell if it’s good or not, but I’m just going, “Well, this is different. This is really different for me, the way he is.” Even when he gets… Even when he’s mortally wounded and he’s talking with…

David Read:
J. McKenzie. She knows the team.

Steven Culp:
He’s talking with Malcolm, and what does he do? He gives advice about what to do. He’s not concentrating on himself at all. He’s a total gung-ho, military, “What’s my mission? Yes, sir.” That’s him.

David Read:
He spends the last 10 seconds of his life passing the torch, making sure that Corporal Mackenzie’s gonna be the one to pick it up. And there’s something…

Steven Culp:
And then Malcolm…

David Read:
… so noble about that.

Steven Culp:
As I recall, Malcolm doesn’t do it.

David Read:
I think he eventually tells her, I would suspect. But what he does is he leads them himself. Because one of the previous episodes, Hayes entrusted Reed and company to go to this place and get something and come back and his guy was gone. And Hayes is like, “I’m sure you did what you could, but I would appreciate a full report.” And Reed internalizes — Because he was supposed to be a… That was supposed to be his journey. That was his… His family was in the navy, and he didn’t do it, and so he sees Hayes from that perspective. All I can tell you is, you may wonder about the effectiveness of the character, but also, all I see there is pure truth.

Steven Culp:
Good.

David Read:
Something else that may ring really true. Henry Wallace, Miller’s Crossing, Stargate Atlantis. Do you have kids?

Steven Culp:
I do.

David Read:
How far would you go to keep one of them alive?

Steven Culp:
Well, that’s an unanswerable question.

David Read:
Exactly.

Steven Culp:
You imagine that you’ll do anything on Earth to keep them alive. But when push comes to shove, one never knows. So, it’s an unknowable. But I think that both my wife and I, we’re fiercely protective and supportive of our kids and really wanna do what’s … Well, we want them to have great lives, and we support and encourage and help.

David Read:
I think that part of a big chunk of the puzzle here is we are talking about a man who is the head of a very large machine that the government wields to create technology in secret to help us against our enemies. So, he already has to have a certain level of Machiavellism about him to even think that way. It’s all greater good. We’ve gotta create these things because we gotta recognize that…

Steven Culp:
Greater good, maybe.

David Read:
…planet has to be safe from these alien threats…

Steven Culp:
Maybe.

David Read:
… that they don’t even know about. And then his daughter gets sick with a pedestrian, earthbound problem and he has these tools at his disposal. What would you do? I don’t know if I would poison someone with some of this technology. But if my child were in danger and I could non-violently convince someone to protect them in exchange for spending the rest of my life in prison, where do I sign? I don’t know if I could … Again, we wouldn’t know until we were in that situation. I couldn’t hurt anybody. But I would be willing to go to prison.

Steven Culp:
It’s interesting to hear you talk about it because I think I was thinking pretty much along the same lines as you were just now as you were speaking. But I did look at the episode because this is… We’re talking almost 20 years ago now when we shot that. Reviewing the performance, I would say that’s one I would like to do over. I think I would approach it very differently now and more effectively. But as far as… What happened with that was that when I originally took the job, I had done this series for ABC that was sort of being held off. They were gonna burn it off over the summer. But it was really limiting what I could do in the meantime. And so, I went up to American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where I had worked before, to do this two-character play by the Scottish playwright David Harrower called Blackbird. Two characters, one scene, 90 minutes, intense. And I had not actually… I’d done a lot of staged readings and workshops, but I had not committed to a full production of a run of a play since my kids, my twins, had been born seven years before that. And I’d also been really busy working, so I hadn’t had time. But because of this series that I’d done that was being held off and was limiting my work, I was like, “Oh, great time to do a play.” So, I contacted ACT and they brought me up there. But it was the first play I’d done in seven years, the first full production of a play, and it was really challenging and really demanding and there was a rawness about it. And really fulfilling. And I was thinking, “Man, I wanna keep this energy going. I really…” And so, I got back and I was only back for a week or two when I got this call from Stargate and they offered me this job and they sent me the script and I looked at the script and I read it, and my first thought was, “I don’t have a clue how to go about this. I just don’t have any idea where to even begin with this character. So, I should say yes.” So, when I went up, I really — Because there’s a lot to encompass. And there’s a lot to embody with this guy. And it’s hard to remember exactly at the time, but it was concentrating on the way you were looking about it, about what’s happening with his daughter and whatever emotion that stirs up and that quandary and “What am I gonna do?” And when I look back on it now, I feel that I didn’t really get there. I didn’t really get there. There’s a certain stiffness, a certain forcedness about it. I think I was going for a certain stillness that I don’t think really works because stillness is more power. And falling into an actor trap, I think, of… Even though all the emotion is contained, I’m trying to contain it, as an actor I’m still really thinking about the tragedy, and how I’m feeling about it and the emotion of it, and that’s usually a trap. Because if it’s really gonna… It’s much better to not think about that stuff at all and keep the lid on the pressure cooker, because then when it does blow, it’s something.

David Read:
You mean on camera in the performance in the moment? You don’t wanna rehearse too much of it ahead of time, is that what you’re indicating?

Steven Culp:
No, no, structuring the part and being in the moment. Keep in your performance. Don’t dwell. And I think… I see myself in a lot of the scenes playing the tragedy, as we used to say in theater school. And also at that time, it’s 20 years ago, I didn’t… There was a lack of… Well, there weren’t as many just apparent examples of megalomaniacal billionaires who think they control everything and who don’t take no for an answer and outside… And I don’t have to name names. There are plenty of them out there.

David Read:
It’s certainly more realistic now.

Steven Culp:
It’s more real[istic] and outsized personalities like that, and it seems to me that now, if I was gonna do it, I wouldn’t acknowledge that tragedy at all because “I’m gonna win. I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win. If this is because no one’s ever… I’m not a loser, I’ve never failed. This didn’t work? OK, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this.” And you’ve got that size and ego and you’re not gonna let anything stand in your way. And if you get met with this no, then you’re gonna go past that and do the next thing. And then, “That’s a no? OK, well, here, I’m gonna inject you with this thing.” And it builds and builds and builds because he doesn’t let the possibility of defeat enter into his head, and I think that’s the way I would do it now. And so, then when he finally meets the no, then there’s an emotional release. He’s not stiff upper lip, “I’m suffering.” Forget about that, “I’m not gonna let suffering in. I’m gonna win.” And you do that for as long as you possibly can until the script doesn’t let you get farther. The script makes you lose.

David Read:
Because his self-perception at that point would be shattered. I was listening to what it was that you were saying about taking it that way, to where “You punch me, I punch back ten times as hard,” and I just have this mindset about myself, “That’s the way that this is,” and I’m asking myself as I go along, “What in the script would you have to change to convey that with a presence and emotionally?” And the answer is, “Not one word.” It would just be… The delivery would be different, that’s all.

Steven Culp:
The presence, the energy, the delivery, every… Just the whole way you approach things. It changes your intentions, your actions, the way you go about things, and I think that role needs a bit of an outsized energy where I’m… The way I’m approaching it in the episode is very interior, I feel, and not as effective and not as compelling, it seems to me. Having said that, I’ve talked to a lot of people who really love that. And not too long after that, we were on strike. The Writers’ Guild was on strike not too long after it aired. And I was marching around Warner Brothers with a sign in my hand, and a nice young woman who was marching beside me said, “I saw that episode of Stargate,” and it really affected her, and I thought, “Oh, that’s good.” But I’ve gotten compliments for it, and I don’t… And I appreciate them all and I appreciate that you’re having me on to talk about it almost 30 years later. So, I hope I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth to say, “I’d have done it differently,” but there’s a lot of stuff from around that time I think I’d like to do over again.

David Read:
I didn’t remember a couple of the scenes until I rewatched it, where he really wants to come off as, “No, that’s not right.” I don’t think this is a bad guy. I think that this is a guy who has been dealt the hand that he’s been dealt. He’s been rewarded by certain blessings, and he’s gonna execute them. And, in this circumstance, it necessitates taking two people, one with the work, and the other one to incentivize the work to be done.

Steven Culp:
It’s pretty extreme.

David Read:
It’s most extreme. And when he’s at the bedside of his child, he’s given his word repeatedly that he’s gonna let them go, even one of them that he’s just injected with experimental drugs. And she comes to his bedside and says, “Will you do this? Will you let me go?” And it’s Frodo with the ring in the mouth of Mount Doom. “You’re here. What are you gonna do? Will you let me go?” And the delivery there is just so subtle, and it’s just, “No. It’s not gonna happen.” Because now he’s staring into the abyss, the abyss is staring back, and he can’t do it, because there’s nothing left. She’s gone. And that was pretty terrifying when you look at it that way. And I think it was… I think that the other method that you’re considering would’ve been perfectly valid, but the one that you executed…

Steven Culp:
Thank you.

David Read:
This is solid stuff. And there is a fitting arc that occurs there, where it’s like, ultimately, he has to pay the ultimate price to unlock the knowledge to save his child.

Steven Culp:
That was the first scene I shot.

David Read:
You’re kidding.

Steven Culp:
Last scene.

David Read:
With Shepherd? With Flanagan?

Steven Culp:
Yeah. The first morning I was there, the first scene of the day, that was the very first thing I shot.

David Read:
Isn’t that frustrating? That has to… “OK, I have to get my mindset into the space that I’m gonna be four or five days from now and go. And just hope that it’s… And just know that it’s there.”

Steven Culp:
Yeah. That’s what preparation is for.

David Read:
That’s it. That’s exactly it. So, I’ve got some fan questions here for you. Let me pull this up here. My buddy, Kevin, “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday…” I have not seen it. He says, “It has my favorite opening of the franchise.” I’m assuming you’re in that. “Do you have any fun memories or stories from Jason Goes to Hell?”

Steven Culp:
I’m trying to think what the opening… Because it’s a long… I’m not sure where for Kevin, the opening ends. Because it’s a long setup. That job was a real blessing in my life because it came at a time I had left New York, where I was fairly successful doing theater, and I started getting work out in LA and I moved out to LA. And when I moved, I had to start over. The start over was much more difficult than I had imagined. And there were a few years where I was not working much except doing small theater plays for free and stuff. But one of the casting directors, Barry Moss and David Giella, who cast the movie, we were connected from New York, and they were big supporters of mine. And David came to see me in a small play I was doing, said, “Hey, Steve, I’ve got this script. We wanna bring you in for this horror film.” And I’m like, “Yeah, sure. What is it?” And I read it and it wasn’t my type of film at all. And I was actually… I was reading to my wife as she was cooking, some of the stuff like stage directions, in all caps, “SHOVES HIS FACE INTO THE DEEP FRYER.” And I was going, “Man, two years ago I wouldn’t have read this script and now I’m auditioning for it.” And I was like, “OK.” But I came up with a way of doing it, that I thought was tongue in cheek, that sort of pushed the ridiculous envelope a little bit. And I thought, based… Because right before the morning of the day that I went in to audition, just for inspiration, I turned on some of the daytime talk shows like Maury Povich and Geraldo [Rivera] and stuff that were on at the time. And it just occurred to me how ridiculous… Because I played this tabloid TV anchor guy and it just struck me how stupid and absurd a lot of this stuff was. And so, I just decided to tweak it a little bit to push it to the edge of being really absurd. Tongue in cheek. And I thought, “Well, if they don’t like it, that’s fine.” I didn’t expect them to like it.

David Read:
You have to be willing to fall every now and then.

Steven Culp:
I went in and Adam Marcus, who was the director, and Sean Cunningham and I think Dean Lorey, the writer, was there. They loved it. They just cracked up. They were like… I had that job in a day. And then the filming of it was — Because I’d been having… My career had been having a difficult time. And I was thinking about, “God, what else maybe…” Because I was in my mid-30s at that point, I think, and I was like, “Well, what am I gonna do with my life? I’m not sure. Maybe this stuff isn’t working out.” And doing Jason was a job that didn’t demand to be taken seriously in the way that I was taking other work that I had done seriously. It was just fun. And you use your imagination, it’s playtime, it’s cops and robbers or cowboys, as a kid. It’s just fun. And rediscovering that sense of fun was something… I remember the first morning I was on the set and I was… I become a manifestation of Jason in the course of the film.

David Read:
OK. Thank you for that.

Steven Culp:
I had some special effect makeup on me, and I was just beginning my transformation and got some blood and I’m sitting there on the set waiting for them to light the scene and doing this ridiculous movie and just thinking, “I love this. This is the place for me. I’m so at home here. This is what I’m meant to be doing.” And I loved everybody that I worked with. And in fact, Adam… There’s a movie, I haven’t seen it, but I think it’s come out. It’s playing at festivals, and I believe it’s called Hearts of Darkness: The Making of the Final Friday. It’s been shown at some places and I’m sure it’s pretty good. Adam had this great, youthful, enthusiastic energy. He really knew what he was doing. Loved the cast and the very hardworking crew. Everybody was just fantastic.

David Read:
It’s OK to have — Here it is. It’s OK to have different periods of your life. Sometimes it’s gonna be — Isn’t that great? Sometimes it’s gonna be Glengarry Glen Ross. And sometimes it’s gonna be Kill Bill, and you have to be…

Steven Culp:
Well, hey, Kill Bill is a fantastic movie.

David Read:
It’s so much fun.

Steven Culp:
Kill Bill is not… Not to dis Jason Goes to Hell, but Kill Bill… First time I saw Kill Bill in theater, I was like, “OK, if you wanna see a big, dumb, ridiculous comic book movie, this is the movie that you wanna see.” Because there’s just a lot of genius in there.

David Read:
And it’s pure fun. I finished… I hadn’t seen it for years later and we had a movie night in the before times where we watched one every week, and the week between Part One and Part Two and I was like, “I can’t wait. I cannot wait for this.” And I’m not an action movie guy, and I loved it.

Steven Culp:
Yes, I’m not much either.

David Read:
There are just some things that just transcend their genres.

Steven Culp:
But the things he does with structure and time, and skipping around in time, and the way he’ll vary the technique, the point of view and the film technique throughout the movie, “OK, you got your anime here, and here you’ve got your…” Well, this is in Kill Bill Part Two where she goes and gets the training. And it’s a whole other…

David Read:
It’s 25-minute act break. It’s like, “Where are we?”

Steven Culp:
He’s the genius. When he’s… I haven’t liked all his movies equally, but what an artist this guy is. Kill Bill, that’s a fantastic movie.

David Read:
I’m really interested to see the full cut of it all at the same time because there’s nothing quite like it. Lockwatcher… So, here’s a show that I’ve been really looking forward to. It’s been sitting on my shelf. “You played the president in The Last Ship. Does anything stand out from that experience? God, I wanna watch this one, but that’s one… I’m gonna have to lock myself away for a while and just ingest it. Does anything stand out?

Steven Culp:
Well, it stands out as far as just being a good role and a great crew and a great cast and working with directors. And this one… Well, I’m not gonna say… It didn’t fall in my lap. I did read for the show, but I read for the part of a general, and I went in and read with Tony Sepulveda, the casting director. And it was just me and him and maybe an assistant, but I was reading with Tony. He’s got the video camera up there. And I did one take and he went, “Well, that’s perfect. Do you wanna do another one?” And I said, “Yeah, sure.” And then I did another one and then I didn’t hear anything about it. And that’s typical. That happens all the time. But then a couple weeks later, I got a call, and I got offered the president and it actually turned out to be a better role than the general, I thought. But I just remember it was a great part and once again, a part that you could really… When you first see him, he’s very, very powerful, and it was fun. It was fun walking into the room. The first big scene I had with everybody, I walk into the conference room and everybody’s sitting around, and the president takes over the room. And without overacting it, I don’t think, there’s just a lot of power there. And in fact, I was teaching an acting class at the time. I was teaching this acting intensive down in South Coast Rep and so it made me think about it. But preparation is so important and just being prepared to go in there and be the president. But there was this one point where I got up from the table and I’m about ready to leave and everybody gets up, which is what they would do.

David Read:
That’s correct.

Steven Culp:
But it didn’t look good for them to get up in the scene because there was still some scene to go. And so, they all started to get up and I went, “Sit!” And then they all sat down.

David Read:
And that’s not scripted?

Steven Culp:
We did a rehearsal and then we repeated it because it just works. But then as it goes on, he is put into a position of being tortured and threatened with death, and he dissolves and gives in, in the space of just a page or two.

David Read:
It was on one page?

Steven Culp:
And when I first read this thing I went, “Oh my God. So, now how am I gonna do this?” And once again, it was that thing I was telling you about, about the keep the lid on it. “Keep the lid on it. Play against it, play against it. Don’t let it happen, don’t let it happen, don’t let it happen.” So, then when it does happen, it’s like, he’s done. He’s in tears. And I didn’t know, “OK, I gotta cry. Ugh.” Having the makeup people stand by so you can squirt stuff into my eye, just in case, because I didn’t know how it was gonna go. But once again, it was… Well, one thing that happened was, one of the writers came into my trailer as they were setting up the lights and said, “I just wanted you to know, this was part of Navy SEAL training and people really would crack that fast.” And I was like, “Good. Good to know.” But I did a lot of physical and mental preparation and really just relaxed, breathe, let whatever comes through, and the director… Oh God, I’m forgetting his name. He was really good. But he was gonna split the scene into two because I even think there was an act break or something and we were gonna break it up. But the first take of it when it… And the camera I believe was on me for the first big take. He saw what was happening and he just let the camera roll. And we went through where we were gonna break and nobody said anything and we just kept going and it was no problem. Tears, no problem. And in fact, I was able to repeat it all day, or the couple of hours that we shot that scene.

David Read:
When something is perfect, don’t screw with it. Just let it play.

Steven Culp:
I was really… I knew when I went past the point and he hadn’t said anything. {art of me went, “OK, great,” as we’re doing this. But he saw what was happening and he didn’t wanna interrupt it. But that was a really… That was a good show to work on. That was the last season for that show. I would like to have gone back and done more of that, because that was good.

David Read:
I can’t wait to see it. Are we good for a few more minutes?

Steven Culp:
Sure.

David Read:
OK. Willard_RS2. I wanna take you back to Trek for one more time. There’s a lot of Trekkies in this crowd. “What was the story of Commander Madden?” You didn’t realize that that scene was gonna get cut. It was supposed to be the final piece of Nemesis. It became a deleted scene. Did that relate to the role in Enterprise at all? Because that came the following year, I think. Hayes did. Because that was Season Two of Enterprise.

Steven Culp:
This was right after my kids were born. And we were… I remember I read the script holding one of my kids while I was feeding him. I forget which one it was. And it had come… And I had just been in 13 Days as Bobby Kennedy, and I was trying to capitalize on that a little bit and probably being over careful about what I did. And I got sent the script and I got sent this scene and I’m like, “Well, I’m not really gonna go in and read for this scene. It’s just this little thing.” But then I read the script and I thought, “Oh God, I really like this script.” And “Oh, I see, he comes in at the end and they’re flying off into the new future,” and I’m like, “Oh, this is really cool. I like this.” So, I went in to read for it. Did I read for it? Yeah, I did. I went in to read for it. I got that role and it was wonderful to shoot. Once again, now that I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it on Deleted Scenes, I’m going, “Oh, now I know how I would approach it.” I wish I could do that one over too. I wonder if this is a pattern with me. But anyway, we shot it and it was fun but then I heard that the movie was getting toward to be two and a half, three hours long. This was when they were editing it. And I just thought, “Oh, well. This scene’s gonna go.” Because you don’t need this scene.

David Read:
So, you were anticipating.

Steven Culp:
So, then I went in to read for Major Hayes. And when I left the room, I think Rick Berman or somebody said, “Do we know him? He’s familiar.” Because I didn’t bring it up.

David Read:
It’s amazing how life… There are things that happen that we don’t intend. There’s work that we create that doesn’t come out. But seeds get planted. Gates McFadden makes a comment… Makes you go and do something which you don’t get but that doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get something because of trying to be got. And I think that the takeaway from that, because we try at this point just like Stargate to come up with the moral of the story at this point in the program, is that… Be willing to go out on a limb, and if you have something that doesn’t pan out the way that you want, don’t despair. You tried and you never know what’s gonna happen next.

Steven Culp:
I really have found this over and over again that in my experience, all my years in the business, you put out effort, and you go toward your goals, and you should do that. You have to do that. But the gifts, the real gifts, usually come through the back door and you don’t expect it.

David Read:
That’s right.

Steven Culp:
You just don’t expect it. And that’s been demonstrated to me. It was actually just demonstrated to me last week on something and I just thought, “Yeah, it still happens.” You do have to put out your effort because that’s your job. But when the really great things happen, it’s totally out of like, “Whoa. This is… I didn’t expect this and it’s wonderful.”

David Read:
Sometimes we just have to be continually reminded that those things can happen. It’s amazing how easy it is for us to get into a groove of behavior where, “I’ve gotta do this because this is the way that life works.” Then something taps on my shoulder and it’s like, “Well, I didn’t expect that.” And it’s like, “Well, but you’ve… This has happened to you before. This kind of thing has happened.” Be prepared to be surprised in your life and for solutions and opportunities to come from places other than directly in front of you. Because you make good ripples, and sometimes not so good ripples, throughout the world. It may come back in all kinds of interesting ways.” Steven, this has been great.

Steven Culp:
Well, thank you. The time flew right by.

David Read:
Thank you so much. Where can we see you coming up? What’s going on? I’m looking at this Good Grief here. This looks… It’s comedy, but the subject matter of it is pretty intense.

Steven Culp:
We shot that in summer of ’22.

David Read:
Wow, it’s been sitting there. OK.

Steven Culp:
It’s also a great film, but it’s a small little indie and I’m not sure if anybody’s ever gonna actually see it. As usual, things are sort of percolating along. Nothing I can talk about. I’ve been doing a lot of theater-related stuff. And in fact, just finished doing two things last week here in Los Angeles that were just wonderful and great fun and challenging and all that really good stuff. So, I continue along there and, you know, auditioning for things. And as always things are percolating, but nothing I can talk about yet.

David Read:
OK. Raj Luthra, last question, “Would you be interested in returning to Stargate in a new character?”

Steven Culp:
Sure.

David Read:
Awesome.

Steven Culp:
Why not? Or maybe the reincarnation of Henry Wallace.

David Read:
Oh my gosh. Yes.

Steven Culp:
I’ll do it correctly this time.

David Read:
Art is never finished, my friend. It’s just abandoned.

Steven Culp:
Absolutely.

David Read:
Always want another crack at something else. Steven, this has been a pleasure. Thank you for taking your time and being so thoughtful. That was an intimidating question, some fathers would have looked at. But you went there and I really appreciate you being considerate about the deeper stuff that that episode represented because it was really heavy. That was a heavy show. And no matter your interpretation on the day, it was good.

Steven Culp:
Well, and actually I have to say, listening to you talk about it, I realized why I went in that direction because that’s the first thing I responded to was the loss of your child and conveying what that means, feeling and conveying it to an audience. That was the first place that I went. And then you try to work it into this other sort of larger-than-life character. So, you think about that a lot. I went to see a friend’s play the other day, a reading of a new play that was written, and it’s about this older couple getting into their 70s and stuff who adopt. They’ve never had kids, and they adopt this man and a woman in their 30s that they’re really close to. And it’s sort of comedic, but it’s also very, “Who’s gonna take care of you when you’re dead? Who’s gonna get your stuff? Who’s gonna…?” There’s a lot of questions. But one of the things that I love that the play addressed was when you let children into your life, you let in all the wonderfulness and all the terror of that because you’re letting in life, and life encompasses all these extremes.

David Read:
Good and bad. I’ve heard when you become a parent, you unlock a huge facet of potential in your ability to feel that you didn’t even perceive necessarily that you had before. And some of it is so joyous and it also includes the greatest potential for despair.

Steven Culp:
Yeah, because as soon as you open yourself that way, something bad can happen to them, they could hurt you, which hasn’t happened, but I worry. I probably worry a little too much about something bad happening to them. But you let that stuff into your life and it’s… But it’s part of the package. It’s part of being alive. It’s what we have to learn to live with.

David Read:
When you looked on that… I’m sorry. I apologize. When you looked on that last scene there, do you think he willingly gave himself to that creature?

Steven Culp:
Oh, yeah. Even though it was the first scene I shot, that was the one scene I really got. I know what’s happening here. He sees the picture of Kate’s daughter.

David Read:
That’s right. And her husband.

Steven Culp:
That I knew. So, absolutely, I think, he says, “Yeah.” It’s willing.

David Read:
This is what I love about sci-fi, because it makes… If we’re willing to be open with ourselves, it makes us more empathetic in going, “Wow.” If we’re not assholes, it’s like, “Wow, what would I do in that situation? How would I feel?” And it’s great stuff. Thank you, Steven.

Steven Culp:
OK, thank you.

David Read:
Thank you.

Steven Culp:
Nice to meet you.

David Read:
I’m gonna wrap up the show. Pleased to meet you. I’m gonna wrap up the show on this side.

Steven Culp:
OK.

David Read:
Thank you.

Steven Culp:
All right, take care.

David Read:
Bye-bye. Steven Culp, everyone. Henry Wallace in Stargate Atlantis, Miller’s Crossing. We have gotten a huge shot of adrenaline this week with a new TV series. And it may be 18 months out, it may be further. We’re gonna have a lot of time to figure out what this thing is gonna be and figure out our relationships with each other. We’ve already got a huge group of people to the party. I have 300 messages that I have to go through to thank people. For those of you who are watching, who have sent messages to me, I’ve not responded yet, thank you so sincerely for the offers of help. Give me a couple more days to accept the new reality that is my life now, apparently, and I will start organizing things, as particularly everyone who has offered to help, we’ve got spreadsheets and you have to go in them. So, give me a chance to respond to everybody properly. I really am so thankful that the Stargate audience has risen once again, and that so many people are interested in discovering this show. You’re watching the Stargate Oral History Project. If you enjoyed this episode and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, please click that Like button. It really makes a difference with the show and will help us to continue to grow our audience. I don’t even really need to say that part of it right now. But if you have a Stargate friend in your life, get this over to them as well, especially if they’re McKay and Miller fans. And, if you click the bell icon, it’ll notify you the next time I have a guest on live. My tremendous thanks. My moderators have done yeoman’s work today. Three hours with Michael Shanks and Lane Gates, and then back here with Steven Culp. What a great guy. Anthony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marsha, Raj, Jakub, and hopefully a few more that I’m gonna be mentioning here in the next couple of weeks as we onboard some of you into the mods section. But I’ve got so many areas where I need help. I need clips to be made of all of this archived material. I’m prepared to let you have access to it if you’re good with video. Tremendous thanks to my producers, Anthony Rawling, Kevin Weaver, Summer Roy, Bryce Ors, Eagle SG Matt Wilson for his amazing opening sequences, and to Frederick Marcoux who keeps dialthegate.com up and running. We’ve got a… Uncertain is not the right word. We’ve got a lot of work to do to get ready for this new show, and there’s gonna be a lot of fun along the way, and there are gonna be people who are wanting to tear it down before it even comes. But I have always been a fan of that gate, and we have been given a fourth chance to get some really cool stories told to us. So, let’s take that journey together, and I’m really glad that you’re here for the ride. If you wanna help, if you wanna contribute, you know what? Let me go ahead and look this up. Do I still have the file? Let me see here. OK, here we go. It’s not that one. Give me just a moment. Let’s see here. OK, here it is. No, that’s not it. I’m trying to get the list of everything that everyone can help me with, and pull this here real quick, because I’m already getting messages. Who was it specifically who said something they wanna help? I can’t find it at the moment, but this is what happens when David is not prepared, and to be perfectly frank, I’m surprised that I managed to get this long with it. OK, screw it. I know what I need. Moderators, if you enjoy the people that you’re interacting with, that’d be great. If you would be interested in becoming one of them, we have a little bit of a process because we are an archival channel, so it’s very important that we retain everything that we’re given, and that includes the fan questions. I need people who are willing to do eight-minute clips of the work, and this is 370 episodes. We have a chapter archive maintained of everything from every topic, and we’re gonna need to start expanding to clips every day of that library. And it’s not that easy, but it is easy. It’s really strange. There’s just a lot of material to go through, but at least all the chapters are organized, so that’s done. The transcripts, we’re about halfway through the transcripts of the show. We had some stalls there, but if you are interested in transcribing or facilitating in that way for the archive… Let me show you. Because Steven… A lot of times our guests hang out afterwards waiting for me to finish, and Steven’s gone. So, let me pull this up here and show you dialthegate.com so you can see what it is that we’re building toward. There’s my element right there. Well, just go away. Pull this here. So, this is dialthegate.com which supposedly at some point here in the future is gonna get a revamp. And here is the entire archive of the episodes. And Shanks will be on there soon, as soon as I can transfer him over from Wormhole X-Tremists. This is the complete collection. This is the archive of the work that we’ve done so far. And there’s a couple of episodes in there. There’s a few people missing, and one day they may hop on board, they may not. But a big piece of that is the transcripts. It’s very important that these be searchable so that when Darren and I do sit down and do a book of quotations from the entire history of this franchise, whatever powerful AI that’s ruling over us at that point will be able to insert these into it, and it’ll say, “Oh yeah, here’s the information here in Part Three, in this episode over here.” And that’s the wrong button that I wanted to push. “Hey, build anything with something, something.” “In part three of Martin Wood, he talks about…” And we had to go back in 200. We were sitting at that table reading the script at every… So, we need that pulled and organized for the future. So, that’s a big thing. If you wanna help, email me, [email protected], and give me a couple of days, and I will get back to all of you. I would love to have you, and I know the mods would too. There’s something for everyone to do, and we’re just getting started. I know this was 373. Before this week, before last week when I found out, I would have said that I was probably well over the hill, 65-70 percent through what I thought was attainable, the stories that we were gonna get. Boy, was I wrong. Thank you, folks, for being here. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Subscribe if you did because more’s coming. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in, and I’ll see you on the other side.