 
GW: What has become easier, after working on this show over the past few years? And what has become more difficult?
DH: Eating. Eating is much easier now than it was before. No, in a strange way, I think learning the lines has become easier.
Hewlett admits he misses having Tapping around on a daily basis. | |
I've never been good at learning lines. And I've never had that photographic memory. I mean, there are people who can look at a page and they have it memorized. I take forever to do it. I believe, if anything, it's proved to me [the brain] is a muscle. The more you do, the better you get at it.
GW: You make it look very effortless.
DH: Well ... watch a few takes. There's a lot of agony. I think when I first came in, I felt you had to get everything right every time. And I think as you get further and further into a series, you begin to realize that it's not just about getting through it. It's worth taking the time to get things right. I think that definitely has become easier for me, in a strange way. I don't get as frightened by nine or ten-page days as I used to.
But that's not license for them to go write more. Please don't go longer! Because they are tough days. But that's definitely something that has been easier. I also think that once the character has dealt with a lot of these situations, you tend to get familiar with the sort of way that McKay is going to react to things. So you sort of know where you're going to go on scenes before you've read them, in some cases.
GW: So as scary as that may be, it becomes a little natural?
DH: Yeah. I think that's a scary thing. I think I've become so much ... it's beginning to become a very difficult thing to separate the two. There's going to be some nasty separation anxiety when I finally do have to pull myself out, peel myself away from that.
GW: Tell us a little bit about Robert Picardo, and what the Woolsey character adds to the dynamic.
DH: He brings sexy back! That's what he does. Picardo is ... well, first off, Picardo is a fantastic actor. He's got fantastic mannerisms, all these beautiful little things. And he does so much work. There's so much stuff going on and everything -- in every sentence. Obviously, he's thought of all these little things. He's just really fun to watch.
And what's nice, from our perspective, is that he's so "fish out of water." I mean, he's the last person who should basically be in charge of Atlantis. And so there's a lot of fuel for us to be unhappy and to argue with his way of running the city. Especially after someone like Sam Carter who so obviously is suited to this stuff, to have Woolsey come in with his bureaucracy.
And paper! All of a sudden -- five seasons, never saw paper on a desk. And all of the sudden, he's got all these papers and files. We all get handled files. And that's it! So, it's just kind of fun. He's come in and put his stamp on it. And it's fun because you can really play that resentment. And we all resent him anyways. How could you not?
GW: Woolsey, just like McKay, started off as a guest star on SG-1, and an antagonist -- someone that you don't really like to like.
DH: You're right. But that's the beautiful thing about guest stars. The thing is, Stargate is not afraid to play with those unlikable characters. Especially when you deal with this kind of stuff, you have to deal with them. When it comes to the sciences, just because you're a nice person doesn't mean you're a good scientist. Quite the opposite in many cases. Kavanaugh is a good example.
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" I love having Amanda around. We had so much fun last year, and I hope it's not going to be just one season."
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So I think what's neat about the Woolsey character is that he's not another obnoxious scientist. He's a bureaucrat. And that's the stuff that is just painful to deal with. It's kind of hard to be a hero when you're constantly checking the manual -- which is funny, because that's in a way what McKay was doing at the beginning, anyways. He was very academic in his understanding of what was going on as opposed to ... his hands-on approach hadn't quite kicked in yet.
It's also really nice to have someone who's sort of the same out-there character. We get to sort of butt heads, but at the same time we're both still in our own little worlds, which is kind of fun. Because it's true. Both Woolsey and McKay are so in their own little worlds. It's kind of fun to see them in scenes together because everything is misconstrued.
GW: Do they clash a lot?
DH: We haven't actually clashed a lot. But anything I say to him I say with utter disrespect. It just tends to be a bit of that kind of stuff, which is sort of fun. But anything I can twist to make it sound like "You're an idiot" -– which is generally what I do with McKay anyways -- every question, every comment, anything that happens is generally someone else's [fault].
One of the things that we were talking about was that often when I have a line that says, "Oh, I thought this was going to happen sooner" or "I didn't think that was going to happen and I was wrong" ... I change it to "we." "We" had no idea that was going to happen."
GW: How does Rodney take Carter's departure? Does he take it hard?
DH: Well, it's open-ended enough that it didn't feel ... to be honest, McKay doesn't know that she's gone for any length of time, anyways. I think, both for logistical reasons and for story reasons, there's a very big open window there -- which I'm very much hoping (and assuming) that we'll be seeing her again very soon. I hope. I really do. Because I think it would be a huge, huge loss, frankly. I love that dynamic.
And in a selfish way, I love having Amanda around. We had so much fun last year, and I hope it's not going to be just one season.
We've got [Michael] Shanks coming in for an episode. And it just makes sense. I don't want us to be completely distanced from SG-1. The whole point is that this is all part of the same universe. There has to be that crossover stuff and that back and forth.
Selfishly, as an actor, Amanda's just fantastic to work with. I love that dynamic that McKay and Carter have. If we hadn't gotten along the first time, I wouldn't be here. I'd be like Kavanaugh. I'd have long hair, probably living in my parents' basement.
GW: Rodney is kind of the Anti-Carter. He's Bizarro Carter.
DH: It's true. And she's also this strangely idyllic version of what he sees for himself, in a way. What he sees for himself in a girlfriend, and also what he wishes he was. He still has such a hard time marrying the fact that she's brilliant and beautiful and brave all together. Because he doesn't have those. He's never all three at the same time -- or very rarely!
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