In the first of our interview series I had the pleasure of talking to Gary Jones, actor, writer, who has been in the shows 'Sliders', 'The Outer Limits' and 'Highlander', he has also been in many features such as 'The 6th Man', 'Trixie', and more recently 'Head Over Heels'. But to us he is better known as Sergeant Davies in Stargate SG-1. At the WOLF SG5 Stargate Convention in Blackpool recently, I caught up with that legendary 'Chevron One Engaged', Gary Jones AKA Sgt Davis, and Technician extraordinaire.

Gary has been a regular on the Stargate SG-1 for six years now and is gathering a legion of fans in his own right. Gary was asked to commentate on an episode of Stargate with Peter Deluise for the DVD commentaries, and so we asked him what the 'reaching' they were talking about so much was all about…

"We just started, that was the first DVD commentary that I did with him, and he's a really funny guy and you can joke around like crazy with him. So, when he invited me to come and do one of these DVD commentaries, he said, 'Ah we just talk about anything whatever, you know like, the show is just running in the background and you just sort of sit there in the studio and they play the entire hour'. It's whatever strikes you as you see it on the screen you just start and give comment on it and it doesn't have to be like, oh this shot was done this way, or we decided that we were gonna talk to the actor about that… I come up on screen and he goes 'OH! There you are reaching!' and I go, 'Well naah its more of a grab' and we started sorta jamming back and forth and then it just turned into this big thing between the two us about how I went to acting school and took reaching sessions and special grabbing workshops…"

Now considering many fans took that as gospel we asked him if that was really true, just to hear him really laugh! Gary has a wonderful sense of humour; he'd have to with us interviewing him!

So did you have those extra lessons?

"Oh what that I did that? No it's not true… Oh my God…No way no, not at all, its just that…well it is kind of like, it is sort of important because, when I sit at the at desk, at that console, I have a very, very limited number of buttons and stuff in front of me. So I basically flick the same switches and twiddle the same knobs for whatever, but I HAVE to make it look like, I kinda know what I am doing, opening and closing the Stargate."

"A lot of times, when they're doing close ups… I'll always ask the camera operators, 'Can you see my hands?' you know like, even if they're doing a two shot I'm going, 'Can you see my hands?' and they go, a lot of times they say NO, I mean who cares about my hands? No, we prefer to get Amanda Tapping's face on screen rather than your hands, so as long as I know my that hands aren't on screen, then I, just sort of do all this reaching and all this sort of movement, like I've got these extra buttons down below."

It must be an art, this reaching stuff, are we sure he didn't have those extra lessons?
Acting school teaches the most amazing things…

So, it's an art?

"It's an Art…it is an art, it IS an art, because you could literally sit there and go, 'HEY I've run out of buttons!' but, you gotta just… you know at this point they are not gonna add more buttons or knobs and stuff so you just make do with what you've got."

"But it's all fake and you know. If you go in and you look at it, the stuff that flashes in the background, literally looks like it was from Boeing in the 1950's."
Gary emulates the sound effects like the background beeps while laughing.
"Like little sort of like, sine waves and cosine waves and all this, when you look at it close up. But then of course when you see it on screen, it looks like the most hi tech stuff you have ever seen, because a lot of times the camera just kinda pans and swishes by and it's enough, that, it looks, you know, kind of like beyond modern right. So that's what its like, so no grabbing or reaching!"

In Gary's 'stretch' and long 'reaching' career in Stargate SG-1, just how many can he remember of those darn gate addresses the show is famous for?

"None, P3X-128, he'll say to me (Don) 'type in P3X-128' and I'll go, 'yes sir' then I'll go… 'Can you see my hands?"

Anyone would think his hands were important to him, but Gary is just hilarious. He used to do a lot of improvisation and you know what, it shows. He has great spontaneity. The Stargate SG-1 family is a big one, I asked just how well does he get on with them all?

"Oh yeah yeah, yeah, they're just, Yeah, Great, I work a lot with Don Davies. He's always the one kinda standing you know, behind me to the right or the left. Just going…"

Gary does a mean impression of Don's deep dulcet tones…

"'Open the Iris, Close the Iris…' You know and I go… 'Yes sir, whatever'
But Don's hilarious!"

"Amanda's like realllllly sweet, like from day one she's was like super friendly - she used to work in Toronto as part of a comedy troop, and we found just through talking, that we had a friend in common that I done some improv with, years ago, who's a really good friend of hers and we kinda of connected and now we are pretty good buds, we're great friends."

"All the cast kinda gets along, Chris Judge is reallllly funny, he is surprisingly funny, I didn't think that he would be, to look at him, you wouldn't think cos his head is shaved, big action star, I didn't think he was funny as he is, but he is very, very witty, and great reference level and a really nice guy."

I have to agree with Gary on this, Chris was hilarious and those of you that know Lenny Henry, you will understand when I say that Chris has that presence on stage and truly is under-utilised in comedy. He should be in stand up, not his stoic, serious Teal'c. But Gary's own performance on the stage of SG5 talking to the many fans was funny and interesting too. In fact, he too had many people in stitches with the stories from set and he had me bursting aloud with laughter several times during the interview. When he talks he has an energy and presence of fun and is very genuine. Speaking of his experience on the set and his characters action…Gary was blown back in Entity from his computer, I asked him what was it like.

"I did my own stunt, that was me, but it was a very kind of, not limited, but very small scale stunt. What they did was they bolted my chair to the floor, and then they brought in this special chair. The shaft that the chair sat on, they put a hinge in halfway down they hinged it, then Dan Shea, who plays Sgt Siler, Dan Shea is also the stunt coordinator, he does like double duty on the show."

"So he talked me through it, they like put pads under my shirt, if you look very, very closely, you can see my outfit is like quite a bit tighter, I've got like huge elbow pads on and I've got a back brace, all sorts of things like that. Dan would just talk me through, 'Ok this things gonna blow up, there's gonna be sparks…' What they do is face them all away from you, right, like they are suuuuper careful about it. Any kind of stunt, it's like they err on the side of going kind of overboard about being really, really careful, so they are that way, nobody kind of blows it off."

"And then he just said 'Ok sit in the chair and what's going to happen is, I'm going to throw you back.' So he's actually out of frame, I'm in frame, but Dan is kneeling down beside there, as soon as the explosion happens he tips the chair back. That's enough to get me out of frame, to just tip me out of frame and then they cut then and then they do another shot then, where my head is basically hitting the ground, that's just me, like lying down close to the carpet, then they go 'Action!' then I just smack my head into the ground. And that's it, so its done in stages, but it's erm, you know any time you have any kind of stunt like that its always exciting, as small as it may be, because its something other than reaching and grabbing!'"

There has been a great debate since the beginning of season one around the name of the character Gary plays in Stargate, I asked him about that and to my surprise his liaison for Wolfevents, chimed in with agreement. Just what is his name? We are so frustrated! We want to know!

Can you lay to rest the name of Walter Davis, your characters name or have they still not decided?

"Let me lay it to rest by saying I have no idea. This has surprised me since I came to the first Gatecon and I really, honestly had no idea that people were so interested. I get on stage, the first question up was, 'What's your name?' I'm like well I don't know. They are all thinking is it Chet? I go Chet? And they go 'Well we decided to name you that…' It was like in one episode called 2010, Richard Dean, just calls me Walter. I go Colonel and he goes… 'Wallllllllllllllllllll terrrrrrrrrrrrr' do you remember how he says it?"

At this point I joined in with the waaallllllllllllllllllllterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We all fell about with laughter.

"Like it was the first time he ever said Walter, trying it out. And so, I was like ok, fine, I like don't care, actually I did care, I was kinda happy because if they name your character, it sort of gets you in there more right. But on the script, when the scripts come to me, it'll say above them O'Neill or Carter above their dialogue, but above my dialogue it says Technician. So it just says Technician, so I am like The Technician, but that's in the script, then in the actual show, Don will refer to me as Sergeant or so will Amanda."

"Basically I don't really talk to the other cast members, I don't have any scenes with them. So in 2010, he calls me Walter, and then they give me this flight suit to wear and my name is Norman Davis! So you tell me, I have like a thousand names, I have no idea what my name is!"

Well it seems that he is the man of a thousand names and we await the next instalment of the name of Sergeant Davis! I asked him if he knew he would be portraying a reoccurring character when he auditioned all those years ago…

"There was talk of it when I first auditioned, my agent at the time said, 'this might be reoccurring' so I was all excited, but I had no idea that the show was going to go for six years and I am going to work on and off for six years…Yeah I had heard, but I still can't believe it."

So if he could play any character on Stargate what would it be?

"You know what, what I'd like…That's a good question!"

Naturally Gary!

"What I would love to do, because I have done the Technician for so long, I would like to do the Technician but have more to do…"

You'd like to go on a mission?

"Oh, that would be like the ultimate, like to be in an episode where I sort of go through the gate? Cos I mean he has spent six years seeing everybody come and go and so it would make sense to me to have the Technician go through, that would be my ultimate.
I don't think I'd necessarily want to play another character, I think it would be fun to find more about this character, by having him do more."

Give him a bit of a life?

"Yeah give him a bit of a life. Yeah"

Give him a name maybe? We are so quick…but Gary is quicker!

"Get him to know his own name!"

How does filming Stargate SG-1 compare with filming other Sci-Fi programmes like Sliders?

"Yeah, Sliders… Sliders had a weird feel to it, couldn't kinda get a handle on that show, it didn't last up in Vancouver to long before it actually moved down to LA. It's the same type of thing, travelling to other dimensions. But I didn't really, I did a couple of episodes, but I didn't really get like a foothold in it, as established or anything."

"Stargate, first of all, just working on Stargate is just amazing, because, its just rare to be able to walk on to a set and know everybody, everybody knows you…all the producers know you, they are just super friendly. Everyone has a great time, we all joke around. You know they even joke around about my role, like with the directors they'll say, 'Oh Gary can you sit in this chair, no wait a minute, no, why don't you sit in 'this' chair?'
I just laugh…I just laugh and it's great fun, it's just great fun, I love going into work there and I know everybody. Amanda Tapping's been, I sorta become friends with her, and she's come over to the house for dinner with her husband. It's great!"

You've done a lot of writing, I hear and you have written on 'Big Sound', how did you get into that?

"Well a buddy of mine, that I knew back in Toronto, when I was first starting my improvising days, he ended up moving to LA and he pursued a writing career. And then just coincidently, Big Sound was gonna get shot in Vancouver, and my friend Frank, he, called me up, because he knew my background was comedy, so he called me up. He'd always sent me scripts of his own and said, 'can you see if there's anymore jokes in here?' Doing what you call Joke Punches, basically you go though his script and try to make it funnier, so he knew my sense of humour, he'd seen me improvise on stage before…and so anyway, he gets this gig and he said 'oh, I am going to be an Executive Producer on this show and so I get to hire who I want, so do you want a job?' So I said yeah. So he hired me and I was on for about twenty two episodes, and I'd written plays and right now I am in the midst of writing a cartoon series."

What's that all about?

"An animation series, it's called Silverwing, and its based on a best selling kids book about bats. It's an action adventure, like a coming of age for this young bat, who goes on this incredible journey and is hunted down by the Owls, because hello…the Owls…"

Gary does a great impression of the evil owls! Ok, scary!

"Enough said! And a couple of giant meat eating cannibal bats from South America, who got captured and bought up to North America to be put into a lab and they escape, and they are trying to get back to South America, blah, blah, blah. It's thirteen episodes and it'll be on the Cartoon Network in Canada next year and then I think maybe it'll come to Britain."

Kenneth Oppel writes Silverwing and he has produced a series of books about the fictional world of bats. It's an interesting read and I would recommend it for kids, great fun, but watch out for the evil owls! I know Gary will give it great justice. So does he have a message for his curious fans about his character with no name, but has piqued our interest in him too? What an enigma…you know, he is so self-depreciating when he answers and it is refreshing to talk to someone who finds it difficult to believe people have interest in his character or even in him…

"Other than I cant believe that…. You know, its even tough saying it, but it sounds like I am quite popular and that people know who I am and that blows me away. I just go in and do my work and I go home. I just assumed that all the leads, like Amanda and Chris and all those guys, that they get all the glory kinda thing and yet when I come to these things and they are all like 'Oh my god, it's the Technician!!!' I'm like how the hell do you know me? Cos my stuff is so short and quick, it feels like that to me anyway, so, it's just a huge treat to come here."

"Last night, believe it or not, I was standing backstage and people are going up on stage and getting massive cheers and the girl that came out of the sarcophagus, Jackie, (Nirrti just so you all know), she said, 'oh my god, they're not gonna know me, they're not gonna know me, I've only done a couple of episodes!'
I start thinking to myself 'Oh my God, they're not gonna know me', I'm gonna walk up there… you know JR walks up there…and they are 'YEAHHHHH JR' He's been killed twice, he's not even on the show and they're like 'YEAHHHHHH JR' and I am like, oh my God this is going to be so embarrassing. I walk out and they go 'YAAA…who's that guy?!"

Just one last question I had to get in here for the benefit of our Jaffa Cake loving members…
Do you eat Jaffa Cakes?

I am sure I win the prize for the most ridiculous question of the day!
Gary looks at me and I have to jump in and explain what they are, he is in stitches as we pass him a packet.
"From McVities…Jaffaaaaaar Cakes…Can I have these? I'll take it back with me, my kids would love this…"

His curiosity piqued on the Jaffa Cakes, I asked him how many kids he had.

"Three…"

Are they all into Silverwing, is that how you got into writing for it? Ok so I'm sneaky and I managed to get another question in there. Sorry if I made you late for your pictures Gary!

"That's how I got into it actually, I read the first book to my, I think he was about eight at the time and then I happened to be…you know as fate would have it, as usual. I went down to this animation house and I was talking to them about trying to get work, just trying to scrounge up work. They were talking about writing spec scripts, cos they didn't really know me that well and I then I see the copy of Silverwing on lying on her desk and I said to her 'oh Silverwing, I've read that book' and she goes 'Oh yeah we've got the rights to it, and we're going to make it into a TV Show.' And then I said, 'Well, then I'll be one of the writers', and she said 'Oh you will, will you?' and I said 'Oh yeah', thinking I would be one of like six writers or eight writers like there did on Big Sound, turns out I was one of twooooooooo, writers."

"I got my buddy on the show, they'd never even heard of him, I said you better talk to my writing partner, he goes in and talks to them, they loved him, they hired him. We the two of us wrote the entire 13 episode arc, then they hired a couple of other writers to write the first four scripts, then Richard and I wrote all the rest, so our names are all over this thing."

Smashing…

"It IS smashing, to use an excellent British phrase."

I promised not to use too many British colloquialisms in the future!
And so he endured a picture with the obligatory Jaffaaaaaaaa Cakes and I…

Stargate Alpha would like to personally thank Gary for his time and endless patience with our questions, I had great fun and I truly hope I made this interview show just what a great (and smashing!) gent he really is. Thank you Gary!

With special thanks to Wolfevents for organising the interview.

Special Credit should go to Simon Grant, who accompanied me on the interview to take the photos you see. Thanks Simon!

And Lastly... Thank you to my very special friend Nick Jones, who puts up with me tinkering and demanding changes constantly while he puts these pages up! Thanks Nick!

Written by Emma Wall ©2002 Stargate Alpha

Other pictures remain the copyright of MGM.