Rick Worthy, "Kytano" in Stargate SG-1

David Read: Helpful if I turn my mic on, there we go. Welcome everyone to Episode 29 of Dial the Gate. Rick is laughing at me. My name is David Read. Welcome to the show everyone, Happy Sunday to you, got through another week. I have a tremendous actor on the other screen with me here, we’re going to be bringing him in in just a moment. Very fortunate to have him, I have been watching him for years now. You name a sci-fi show, there’s a very reasonable chance he’s in it, and a lot of other great content besides. Before we get started, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click that like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guests changes. This is key if you plan on watching live, Clips from this live stream will released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. I’m gonna go ahead and talk with Rick, you, all in the YouTube Gallery talk amongst yourselves. We have moderators standing by here to submit your questions into the chat for Rick and I’ll be taking those as we move throughout the show. Afterwards, I have some K’tano art to show everybody and we’ll be talking about our sponsors as well. Enough yapping out of me. Mr. Rick worthy, hello, sir.

Rick Worthy: Thanks man. I’m so happy David, thank you for this.

David Read: I have always been a tremendous fan and I was trying to figure out when is the right time to ask to bring him in? It’s like, “you know what? Wave one. Let’s just go out there and see if he would be interested.” We talked on Dialing Home two years ago, the MGM project that is no longer around, with Christopher Judge.

Rick Worthy: We were in Vancouver at the Sutton hotel and I think you and Chris ordered five bowls of french fries.

Rick Worthy: Thank you so much for inviting me. I had a lovely time hanging out with you and Chris that day.

David Read: You asked for French fries. We were like “what can we get? French fries will do it. French fries will do it.” I was there with Chris, we were filming for Dialing Home. I was running through the Sutton, downstairs. I told the story before on the other one, I was like, “I think I just saw a Cylon…It is, it’s Simon! Fraking Cylon, those toasters!” We were going to have you on the show, we wanted to have you on that one. It’s like “he’s downstairs right now.” You had your dog kenneled or something and we managed to sneak you in for about 45 minutes. We didn’t get to nearly talk about enough with you so I’m really glad to have you on now.

David Read: Isn’t he awesome?

Rick Worthy: Yeah, man. He’s so cool. I’ve said this before in a couple of interviews, people have asked me “what’s your all time favorite job you’ve ever had?” I always say, “well, it’s sort of hard to rank them” but I always say “Stargate is in my top five, easily in my top five.” It was an experience. Chris made it wonderful, I have to just be very honest, as well as Peter DeLuise.

David Read: Directed The Warrior and Chris was the “story by” for your episode, it was his concept. Why is it in your top five? Is it the people? Is it the story? Is it what it did for your career?

Rick Worthy: I was a fan of the show to start with and I love the movie, of course, with Kurt Russell. When the series came on I said “oh, they’re making a series out of one of my favorite films. Man, this should be really cool.” I started watching it from the first season and I thought it was fun and great and different and really, really well done so I became a fan of the series. I was just kind of ready to do something different man. Maybe two, three years before that I had just come off Magnificent Seven, we got canceled, we were on CBS. I had a couple of jobs in between, I worked a bit on Star Trek. Battlestar and all that, that was later, that was after Stargate. Stargate was the role, and the role of K’tano, it really kind of put me back in the sci-fi game, the world. I was ready for it because I love science fiction. It was fun and challenging. The second I got to set, Peter DeLuise gave me his cell phone number. He said, “Dude, if you have any questions about anything, any of the mythology, anything, the story…”

Rick Worthy: “…you can call me day or night.” Yeah, he said, “let me know, 24/7 let me know because you have to be on this.”

David Read: He’s your man.

David Read: So I take it directors don’t do that? Give out their cell phones openly?

Rick Worthy: I don’t think so, not often, unless it’s a sort of special situation. But the mythology of the show, you have to understand the show. You have to understand what a goa’uld is, you have to understand what a Jaffa warrior is and what the Stargate is and how it works. I soaked it all up like a sponge, I was ready for it. I was physically ready for it too; I was ready to do something that incorporated fighting and stunt fighting.

David Read: Your taekwondo trained, right?

Rick Worthy: Yeah. When I got there I remember the first thing they asked me was, “Can you do anything? Can you do kicking, can you do punching?”

David Read: “Well, let me tell you! I can flip myself in the air like a rag doll.”

Rick Worthy: Yeah, exactly. I said, “I can, yeah.” I always say, “I will try, for sure.” I could do a lot of stuff that they wanted me to do. There were a couple of things in the fight that weren’t me but especially with facing me with the camera facing my face, I really tried to do it myself. I did about 92% of the fighting.

David Read: I want to come back to more of that. The Matrix had just come out, Peter wanted to do a very unique track shot with the camera where it’s in a little bit more slow motion. I want to get to that in a little bit, one of the cooler shots of the entire franchise. Have you been a sci-fi fan since you were little? What captivates you about the genre? When did you really get into it?

Rick Worthy: I was born in 1967 and one of the first shows that I fell in love with at the age of what, five, was Lost in Space and then of course, Star Trek, The Original Series. I’m from Detroit, Michigan, me and my brother, all the kids in our neighborhood, we loved Star Trek. We wanted to be on board the Enterprise and and go to other worlds.

Rick Worthy: It was so cool man. It was so racially diverse. You’d see Uhura and you’d see Spock and Kirk and all these different races, altogether aboard this ship and they’re all off together exploring the world.

David Read: Don’t we all.

David Read: One common goal.

Rick Worthy: One common goal. It was “to boldly go where no one has gone before” and I was like, “Man, that’s so cool.” I think that stayed with me my whole life; it stayed with me all the way up until I really became an actor. I came to L.A. 25 years ago, I wanted to be a cop on NYPD Blue. I love NYPD Blue, I think it’s one of the best series I’ve ever seen. One of the best pilots I’ve ever seen was the pilot for NYPD Blue. I came, I did an episode of NYPD Blue, it took about a year. It was cool, it was fun, but it wasn’t fireworks, it didn’t hit me. My agent called me and said, “Do you like Star Trek?” I said “dude, I freakin love Star Trek! Do I like Star Trek? Yeah.” I was like “that’s golden question, that’s the $50,000 question.” I said, “Yes, I do.” She said, “Well, there’s a video game that they’re making called the ‘Klingon Warrior,’ they’re going to shoot it live action, an eight day shoot or 12 day shoot or something. I got you an audition to be one of the Cylons if you want it.” I said, “Yeah, I want it.” I went to Paramount, auditioned, met Jonathan Frakes and a few other casting directors that were in the room. Jonathan liked me and he hired me and that got me on the sci-fi radar.

David Read: I didn’t know you were in Star Trek Klingon…I love that video game.

Rick Worthy: Do you really?

David Read: I love it, and Borg that came after it. Gowron is “will this be the right decision? Will that be the right decision. Make a decision!” It’s a brilliant game. It was experimental technology, the whole thing is video, it’s clickable, choose your own adventure. That’s great that you were part of that.

Rick Worthy: Dude, first of all, you’re the very first person, the very first person ever, that I have met who says “Oh, I love that game.” Not only that, but that you know the game. A lot of people are like “well, was it an episode of a series?” I’m like, “No, it was an actual video.”

David Read: Live action. It was one of the reasons why when I graduated from college my final was a “choose your own adventure” DVD movie.

Rick Worthy: Right on. Do you have an option of how it’s going to end?

David Read: 15 different endings. Now, on Netflix, we’ve got Black Mirror shooting episodes like that so it was well ahead of its time.

Rick Worthy: Well ahead of his time. That’s 25 years ago. Now we live in the age of this [cell phone].

David Read: Exactly.

Rick Worthy: Phones.

David Read: And unfortunately, little else than this.

Rick Worthy: Exactly.

David Read: I’ve always wanted to ask you, 3947 [character in ST: Voyager S02E13], how did you breathe?

Rick Worthy: It was really hard. 3947, Star Trek Voyager, that was my very first…In fact I was doing a podcast interview maybe three, four weeks ago and they asked me about that too. They said, “What was it like working on Star Trek Voyager?” because they loved Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise. Well, actually, I did a podcast with Garrett [Wang] and Robbie [Robert Duncan McNeill].

David Read: Yes, the Delta Flyers.

Rick Worthy: They both asked me, “What was it like being inside the suit, the robot suit?” I said, “Man, it was cool as hell but it was really hard to visually see anything because I just had tiny little dots where the eyes were.” If you know the episode, the character looked like a mannequin. In fact, I think Jonathan Frakes even said, “Yeah, you look like a really cool badass mannequin.”

David Read: It’s very simple, it’s very Cylon-similar. Everything is in the articulations of the performance; he’s very formal. Was the dialogue pre-recorded so you could mime it or did you actually try to communicate the dialogue through that face, a la Anthony Daniels, C-3PO?

Rick Worthy: That’s exactly what I did. Yeah. I had to push through the mannequin mask and speak as audibly as I could. I had to ADR the entire performance.

David Read: Of course.

Rick Worthy: I’m one of these actors, I’m one of these freakish actors, I love ADR, I love a second chance if I need it. “I’m gonna probably ADR this entire thing” and I ADR’d the whole thing and I’m glad I did.

David Read: I’m sure having Roxann [Dawson] at the other end of a lot of those scenes was fantastic. What a director she’s turned into, man oh, man.

Rick Worthy: She’s directing everything.

David Read: I know. Her, Amanda Tapping. Have you had a chance to work with Amanda yet as a director?

Rick Worthy: I have not. She directed, I would say at least one, maybe two episodes, of The Magician’s, my last gig. I was not in those episodes but I saw her on set. I saw her walk by or she was in the office picking up scripts or whatever it was. I said “oh man, that’s awesome.” I’m thinking “I hope I’m in next episode so I can work with her.”

David Read: Absolutely. Before I get off off Star Trek, I was always hoping that the Equinox crew would make a return appearance in season six and seven. You were finally on that ship and we never followed up on what happened to [Crewman] Lessing.

Rick Worthy: I know.

David Read: Were you hoping at that point, “Oh I’ve got to be in the next few seasons somewhere, even if it’s one episode.”

Rick Worthy: I was hoping, yeah, of course, but it didn’t work out that way.

David Read: You got Insurrection [Star Trek movie], there’s that.

Rick Worthy: That’s the episode [film] where I learned the art of what Jonathan Frakes calls “submarine acting.” Submarine acting is when you’re in a ship in outer space but the hull of the ship starts cracking. It was the coolest thing. He said, “Okay, I’m gonna teach everybody how to do this. It is called submarine acting. You have to pretend you’re in a submarine deep in the ocean and then you hear a [crack] and then water starts creeping in. You’re like ‘shit!’.” If you think about it, that will scare the hell out of you.

David Read: Of course it will, yeah. You’re about to decompress and implode.

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. You’re like “death is imminent baby;” in a matter of seconds. It was really fun working with him even though I was on set for just maybe two weeks.

David Read: And some amazing prosthetic makeup but at least you could see that time.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, I could see and I had a big lizard head. He was a cool character. Was is the Elloran Officer?

David Read: Yeah, “separation in 20 seconds. Counting down!”

Rick Worthy: Yes! That’s it. “Separation in five seconds…two seconds.”

David Read: I have to say, you don’t even have to be watching the screen. You hear your voice, it’s like, “I know exactly who that is.” I think it’s one of the reasons that you were picked for The Warrior; you’re an orator. The lines in The Warrior, some of those lines are so magnetic. You can see how people, be they good, somewhere in the middle or evil, are just like, “wow, this person is captivating.” You look at these old reels of Hitler and it’s like, “man!”. You can see the magnetism there. Even someone like K’tano, who was actually a villain at the end, boy oh boy! You can understand why people would just flock to him.

Rick Worthy: Well thank you man, thank you so much. You have no idea. It’s means more than what any critic could write about what I did or anything. I worked really hard on that and I really needed him to sound and be captivating as possible. A magnetic, charismatic figure, comfortable in front of a million people with me and everyone’s listening. They gave me the platform and the dialogue for it, it was a very well written script. I read it in L.A and I was like, “This is gonna be really good.” Part of you is like, “I’m a little scared” which means that it’s challenging; it’s going to challenge me, you know?

David Read: I imagine there’s always a fear. It’s like, “I know what they want but what if I can’t pull it off to what it is that I think that they want?” We’ve never really had a character like that. It’s always just been Teal’c and Bra’tac and Teal’c and Bra’tac and then this other Jaffa comes into the mix who everyone flocks to, in ways that Teal’c and Bra’tac could never rally people to their cause and this guy just sweeps it all away. At this point, Teal’c and Bra’tac are like, “anybody will do. Please, let’s all follow this guy. Let’s just come together.”

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. I watched it last night, the episode. 25 years later, we have this amazing streaming technology. I pulled up my Netflix on my new computer that I have here and I punched in Stargate, “Oh, it’s all available, everything is right there.”

David Read: It’s on Netflix now.

Rick Worthy: Yes! That’s awesome! I didn’t know that. I knew it would probably be there but maybe it’s on Amazon, maybe it’s on YouTube, I don’t know. I’ve been able to get a lot of stuff on YouTube Red; buying movies and stuff like that. It’s all available right there on Netflix so I watched it last night, I watched it twice. It’s been a long time since I did a proper viewing and sit down and don’t answer the phone and just watch it.

David Read: Is it as good as the first time around?

Rick Worthy: Man, I say this with all humility, I’m really proud of it man. It’s a cool episode from top to bottom. I said this to you and Chris, yes K’tano is this charismatic leader, gatherer of men, but it’s Teal’c’s unwavering, unshakable belief in K’tano. He keeps clashing with O’Neill.

David Read: Both of them do.

Rick Worthy: Yeah. It’s just like, “bam, bam, bam, bam.” He’s like, “K’tano will set us free” and O’Neill’s not buying it and they keep clashing throughout the whole episode. Then when they go on the raid, Nirrti’s Jaffa, and then K’tano grabs all of those guys, all those Jaffa warriors, and then they march [sings tune]. The music, everything, is just wonderful. Then O’Neill and Teal’c clash one more time; it’s his belief that’s so wonderful to me. It sets up the betrayal at the end and it’s…oh, dude! I was crying man. He comes back “deceiver, deceiver.”

David Read: Joma secu.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, Joma secu; the challenge, the gauntlet, bam! I thought the emotional stakes were played out at the right speed and the right tempo all the way through to the fight at the end.

David Read: The Jaffa have always looked to someone else to save them. I wince when people say to me in person, “oh, so and so is going to make things better. Politician X, Y, or Z, so and so will do this.” You have to do it yourself, you have to be involved directly as much as you can. Someone else is not going to come and save you, you have to stand back and prepare for that hurricane. I think The Warrior is a prime example of a civilization or a group of people taking an idea and just moving the idea over to someone else and saying, “all right, we’re not going to follow a goa’uld, we’re going to follow him.” The ultimate irony is he’s a goa’uld.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, exactly. I totally 100% agree. That’s applied to right now; what’s happening in the world now. People have to to fight for their own communities and their values and the things that they want to make the world a better place. It becomes an age old lesson of following someone blindly and where that can lead.

David Read: Not to say that you don’t follow people; we’re built to follow leaders. But at the same time keep that in mind, always in the back of your head, absolute power corrupts.

Rick Worthy: Absolute power corrupts and power corrupts absolutely.

David Read: Exactly.

Rick Worthy: Always have that third eye watching all the time.

David Read: Rick, I want to take a step back. So you grew up in Detroit, a sci-fi fan, who are your personal heroes? One of the things that I’ve discovered about this show is that we’re exploring the theme of heroes, especially this year. The people who have made us better than we were the day before, who are your personal heroes?

Rick Worthy: Well, I have a couple and I’ve added a couple as well. I’ve always said that if I could meet someone in this life, some kind of way, if it was possible to transport to some other realm of existence, whatever you want to call it, I would love to sit down and have lunch with Bruce Lee. Man, he influenced me so much. Not only in his fighting, which was him, but his philosophy of life in which he put into his fighting. That’s what made him great; his approach to life itself. He wanted Jeet Kune Do to be Taoism in motion, movement without thought. Man, ever since I was a kid I was like, “God, I just think he’s amazing.” I started reading books that about him as I got older and things like that. Bruce Lee. I would love to have met Muhammad Ali.

David Read: Gosh.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, Muhammad Ali. I had a gorgeous painting by Keith Haring, I believe the artist’s name. It was up on my wall in another apartment I had years ago, it’s Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston. He’s like, “bam” like that. It was just a perfect capture of this young 22 year old champion who conquered the world. It was something so great about Ali; he believed in himself and he believed he could do it. Even though people doubted him, they doubted that he could become champion of the world at such a young age, he did it. He went to the Olympics and did it there and he came back and did it back home. He was just an amazing person and what he stood up for was amazing too. He didn’t want to go to Vietnam, he wanted to stay here and fight for black people here in the United States. I just respect someone who has such a value system; from my point of view speaks of righteousness, you know.

David Read: Things greater than yourself.

Rick Worthy: Oh dude, absolutely. More important than fighting is human rights and that’s what made him great. I love Barack Obama, I love Bernie Sanders and my latest hero is Dr. Anthony Fauci.

David Read: At some point he’s gonna get himself on the cover of Time magazine, if he hasn’t already. I think he probably already has, but I mean like the person of the year. Hopefully 2021 Person of the Year. Please God, let us get through this thing.

Rick Worthy: For sure, yeah. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are my heroes. Not to go into a whole thing about politics but I was walking down Larchmont Boulevard, not too far from Paramount Studios actually in Hollywood. I happened to look into a store, this is two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and I found this little Obama doll. It was so cool and I said, “You know what? I’m buying this for me.”

David Read: Adults can have action figures?

Rick Worthy: I can have it, that’s right. A lot of people have already bought this one, it’s the Biden doll. It sold out so fast that the guy said,”there’s only three left. I’ll tell you this one if you really want it.” I said “I do, I want it.” Especially in this year, this unusual, outrageous, unprecedented year, I’ve become a news junkie. Right now I’m reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama and it’s amazing. I read Michelle Obama’s book too, Becoming, and that’s amazing. That’s kind of where my head is right now; we need things to be better.

David Read: It’s so easy to get absorbed in all of the negative. We think that Twitter is the real world, it’s not.

Rick Worthy: It’s not.

David Read: The human to human contact that we have been lacking has, I think, really been showing itself in negative ways this year. I think we’re not valuing each other like we used to and we need to take more time with one another and to listen more.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, I totally agree. I’m hoping that will be 2021, I’m really hoping.

David Read: I agree. Rick, what are some of the performances that you have done that stand out to you as milestones in your career for, perhaps, their difficulty, the skill that was required? When you were studying and exploring these characters and bringing them to life, things that you didn’t expect to find in that exploration of certain characters that resonate with you over time. Like, “you know what? That was a great role. That impacted me, that wasn’t just a performance.”

Rick Worthy: I’m so glad you asked that because I think every actor has that list in their head. If someone asked me that question, what would I say? I have a massive love of science fiction, as you know.

David Read: Oh, really?

Rick Worthy: Yeah, “tell me something I don’t know.” I did one episode of a TV series that probably very few people have heard of, called Boomtown. It’s a cop show that starred Mykelti Williamson and Donnie Wahlberg. It was about cops in L.A, homicide cops, detectives, in L.A. I think it went two seasons. It was, I thought, a fabulous show about police officers and detectives in Los Angeles. We’ve seen it so many times but this was so different, it’s so unique. I love the actors. I was a guest in one of the episodes and I had to play someone who was closer to my age. You see him closer to maybe 30, 32 years old, 33 years old or so, but it’s from like 1980, something like that. The character played by Mykelti Williamson flashbacks to when he was a child. It’s pretty hard to say this but the character was sexually abused by his coach and I was cast to play the coach back in 1980s, early 80s version, which looked like me now, and then present day. They had to age me up to the present and the character had physically changed drastically; he wasn’t a young man anymore, almost unrecognizable in terms of how he looked present day. I had moustache and hair and greying hair. Probably mid to late 70s was the first time you see him in the flashback and then up to current day he’s aged a lot, he’s like 35, 40 years later and he’s a senior citizen. It was challenging playing a role first of all, someone who’s a pedophile, and then secondly, someone who has aged so much. I had to really believe to convincingly do that; it was all in the physicality and everything. Moustache and the greying, that helped, but you have to really capture it, how someone would walk who’s 64 years old, that type of thing. It took me to some very challenging places emotionally and it was a physically drawn out episode and emotionally drawn out episode. By the time we were done shooting I was wiped out. I love Mykelti Williamson, he was so nice to me. It’s an amazing episode and all the producers told me, they said they were glad they cast me.

David Read: It has to be a situation where you must have to put yourself in a place where you’re continually reminding yourself, “I am servicing a broader story. I have my part to play, maybe a reprehensible one, but it’s in service of the story.”

Rick Worthy: The bigger story, yeah. I’d read it, I said, “I trust that this will be able serve this character in the story in the right way.” I’m going to just skip ahead to the end of that episode. He wants to, Mykelti’s character, he had such a cool name. The character’s name was Fearless, that was his street name, but all the officers called him Fearless. He was an amazing LAPD homicide detective and he wanted to track down this guy because this guy had abused Fearless when he was a kid. Now, 35, 40 years later, he uses the tech, the computer information, the technology they have at the police department to find where this guy is and Fearless finds him. In his mind he does a playback of what he would be like as an adult fighting this pedophile. He whips his ass, he just beats this pedophile…

David Read: He’s previewing what he’s going to do to this guy.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, in his mind. When he knocks on his door and finds him, he’s this old weak man who has nothing left. He’s has a chair, he has his Bible sitting on his desk, he’s extremely poor.

David Read: He still did what he did but yeah, he’s not expecting what he sees.

Rick Worthy: He’s not the guy from 40 years ago, right? It’s amazing because Fearless pulls out his gun and aims it right at his forehead but then he decides not to kill him and he just walks away. It’s powerful, man, it’s so powerful. The whole scene just played out and the character was just grateful for his life and incredibly, incredibly sorry for the man he used to be.

David Read: We can’t know what we would be like until we’re in that situation, where someone has wronged us so severely. It’s not up to us to say one way or another how something should be done when you get into a situation like that. But grace is still in the world, you know? It pops up when you don’t think it will.

Rick Worthy: Yeah.

David Read: Go ahead.

Rick Worthy: No, that was it.

David Read: Okay. It’s like, “if there’s more to this, I wanna hear it.” Tell us about getting hired for The Warrior. You had been a fan…

Rick Worthy: I’d been a fan. The Warrior, as I said, K’tano, not only the character but just being on Stargate, is one of my top five jobs of all time. I don’t know the ranking, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

David Read: Still it’s saying something, man. That’s really good.

Rick Worthy: Believe it or not, when I went in to audition for K’tano I assumed it would be standing up. The first time we see him he’s giving his speech to masses but the casting director said, “No, let’s do it sitting down.” So I’m sitting down just like I am right now and just like you are; four feet from each other. He says, “Okay, you’re ready?” I said, “yeah.” “Action!” I can’t remember what scene it was that I did.

David Read: Oh, it wasn’t necessarily the opening monologue?

Rick Worthy: It wasn’t the opening monologue. I think it was the scene with me and Teal’c when K’tano recruits Teal’c to come on to the raid of Nirrti’s Jaffa, like, “come on this mission with me.” I think Teal’c has been waiting to be formally asked by K’tano to come on this raid, I think it was that scene. I did the scene and then he said, “Okay, that was good. Now, I want you to really use your voice.”

David Read: Dial it up.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, like turn it up. Then I became K’tano and I started speaking like this, more like “power” [forceful and authorative]. It just came from way down here, which I normally would do if the space provided for it but I think he wanted to get an idea of what it was like just more intimate but still with command. That made, I think, an enormous difference. I would normally do that anyway but typically for an audition, if I’m that close to someone else, I’ll kind of keep it a little bit more or less toned down. He wanted it to be big; not so, so big but big enough to get an idea that I can speak in front of 1000 people?

David Read: Yeah, is there a range there that you can dial? It’s not stuck on one, it wouldn’t work. People like this are chameleons, for good or ill, they can mirror whatever situation that they’re in.

Rick Worthy: That’s right.

David Read: So was this an L.A audition? Was it taped, sent up to Vancouver?

Rick Worthy: It was taped. Very different than they do it now, but yeah, it was taped. I think they mailed it to Vancouver, I don’t know how they did that back then. Now it’s all [computer] “okay, they got it. They literally got it.” That’s the digital world we’re in right now but at the time you’re like, “we got it, we’re going to FedEx it. They’ll get it tomorrow afternoon, hopefully get a call by tomorrow night.” As an actor you’re thinking, “okay, they’re gonna get it tomorrow, 4pm to Vancouver. Maybe tomorrow night, which has happened a couple of times, you’ll know right away.” But typically 2, 3, 4 days, you’ll know yes or no.

David Read: I was about to ask, so typically it’s around two to four days you find out?

Rick Worthy: Typically, yeah. I once did an episode of Dark Angel, literally the very last episode of the whole series. The big thing about that one was James Cameron, who was co-exec producing Dark Angel with Jessica Alba, as the star, they were bringing James in to direct the finale.

David Read: Wow.

Rick Worthy: Yeah. You’re thinking Titanic, Terminator…

David Read: Intense personality one way or the other. The man’s a genius.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, no shit. I knew I think that night. I auditioned, I think, the morning and then my agent called me before 7pm and said, “you got your passport?” I said, “Yes.” He said “okay because you’re flying up tomorrow morning.” It was super fast but that’s rare. I think it’s pretty rare.

David Read: How much of that was location and how much of it…I’m assuming the tents were on a soundstage, the interior shooting? Then everything else for you was pretty much outdoors in the GVRD.

Rick Worthy: Outdoors, yeah. It was all outdoors. For Stargate pretty much everything I did was outdoors and the tents. Yeah, I love the tents. They were outdoors at the GVRD as well I think. I can’t quite remember.

David Read: Yeah, the mountain range there, that whole row of beautiful mountains and all the tents they had set up for all the different sects of Jaffa. It was quite an ordeal. I worked at Propworx, we sold a lot of the Stargate prompts and stuff and one of the things that I sold was a model of your camp. It had tents, tents, tents, tents, tents and everything was there. There were only three or four of those so this was something that Peter had really worked to develop and he wanted it to be exactly right. Because he’s the sick genius that he is, he wanted it to be perfect.

Rick Worthy: You know, Vancouver, man, you can shoot anything there, it’s incredible. You can make it look like New York, you can make it look like the desert you could be in another galaxy.

David Read: Nuclear Caprica, in the mountains. It’s probably the same spot.

Rick Worthy: I think somewhere we were talking about this, I’m sure you’ve heard this as well. There’s this running, I don’t know if it’s really a joke, but I love Jackie Chan. He’s one of the people I would love to meet, if not work with, I think he’s just phenomenal. He’s Charlie Chaplin plus Bruce Lee mixed together. He does his own stunts and he’s broken his bones 50,000 times…

David Read: He doesn’t care.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, he doesn’t care. He’s like, “Okay. Let’s do it again.” Like “Jackie, Jackie timeout.” He just goes man. He’s also a huge lover of dogs. When he came to, I think he was in LA, I’m sure many, many times, but he posted something on Instagram or Twitter. He was at Petco and he was so happy to be there. He says, “we don’t really have these where I’m from, this is awesome.” He was sitting next to this gorgeous husky, you know? It was so cool. But Jackie Chan did a movie called Rumble in the Bronx, I believe, and if you look at it there’s a certain shot in Rumble in the Bronx where it’s clearly the mountains of Vancouver.

David Read: This must be a Bronx from a different dimension.

Rick Worthy: Different dimension Bronx, that’s not the Bronx that we know. It was so cool because just for three seconds you say “oh my god, we used to go skiing over there. That’s not the Bronx.”

David Read: Smallville did that too. It’s like “this is not Kansas.”

Rick Worthy: It ain’t Kansas baby, no.

David Read: So, you get the part, you’re up there. Peter DeLuise, you’ve got him directing, he gives you his number. Christopher Judge comes in, you know Tony Amendola. Everyone knows Tony Amendola, my gosh man, God bless him.

David Read: Bra’tac. What was the costume like, getting into the physicality of this character? The duality of knowing that you are playing something that is pretending to be something else? Fill us in on sinking your teeth into this magnificent role.

Rick Worthy: Bra’tac.

Rick Worthy: This is a great actorly question because one of the things that helps me a lot is, in addition to the script which I start with; every actor starts with the script. The next part of creating the whole character is what the character is wearing. I almost immediately want to get into costume right away. I’ll walk around all day in costume, even during lunch, I’ll keep it on because I need to still stay in the shoes.

David Read: It informs the movement and his history?

Rick Worthy: Yeah, absolutely. I was watching last night, I thought one of the cool things was K’tano is dressed as one of the Jaffa far but he has a cape as well. He has this beautiful flowing cape and I remember thinking “I’m going to try to use that. Not too much, but every now and then I want to kind of flex it a bit, taunt it just a little bit.”

David Read: It’s reserved for the Jaffa with status.

Rick Worthy: Absolutely, Jaffa with status. Especially with the standoff with O’Neill towards the end when K’tano sends Teal’c off on this suicide mission. I forget the line that he says but K’tano says “he will succeed” and then O’Neill says something “because you want him to die.”

David Read: The one that I remember is, you say “the Jaffa will be free” and O’Neill goes “to follow you.” K’tano says, “I grow tired of this.” He’s been pushing his buttons throughout the entire episode and at that point if K’tano were just going to take the cape and just go [swings cape] and just turn around and walk away, you wouldn’t blame him.

Rick Worthy: Oh for sure, yeah. The cape lended itself for that and I wanted to use that. You hit it right on the nail, K’tano says, “I grow tired of this” and then he goes, “it’s time” [shouts]. He just walks away from him like he’s a god, like, “you’re beneath me, goodbye.”

David Read: He’s king of this particular hill and O’Neill’s not treating him as such. He’s got these guys behind him who are ready to die for him. That’s power!

Rick Worthy: Again, you said it perfectly, it was how he is dressed and how he moves in that costume, it helped me a lot. Also I’m a big fan of what a character wears in terms of shoes and boots or whatever it is. People tend to walk differently if you’re wearing loafers versus if you’re wearing cowboy boots versus converse; it literally changes your body, how you move. I said “he’s got to wear the right shoes. He’s got to walk with confidence and dignity and grace and power, but he’s also got to be able to whip some ass.” It all worked out really well. I’ve done a couple of other projects where I had to fight wearing a suit and a tie and shoes, typical Matrix sort of thing. I remember fighting in these really nice dress shoes and I slipped on the ground.

David Read: On the set of The Warrior?

Rick Worthy: No.

David Read: Different show?

Rick Worthy: Different show I did maybe four years, five years after Stargate. It was called The Fallen, it was a mini series. The fighting on Stargate prepared me for it because instead of fighting one on one with Teal’c, in The Fallen I play this warrior angel who dresses in Armani clothes who looks a lot like Morpheus in The Matrix.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, he’s badass. He’s fighting in these Hugo Boss shoes and I said, “Okay, this is cool. I love the look and I can move in the suit, that’s good. It’s the shoes in this alley in Vancouver at 2am. You guys have to do something to the soles of the shoe so I don’t slip.” The first couple of takes I couldn’t get my grounding. I would kick and then I’m like, “Whoa.” Then it was raining as it does in Vancouver.

David Read: Oh gosh, all the time.

David Read: Badass.

Rick Worthy: All the time. “We need to cut and please have wardrobe do something to the bottom of these shoes.” What they did was they put some rubber lining at the bottom, very bottom, and they stapled it on or something. It was like walking in trainers, athletic shoes.

David Read: Wow, they did it.

Rick Worthy: Huge difference, oh yeah.

David Read: I imagine when you went up there you weren’t immediately shooting? You had to have some time to prepare for that fight sequence.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, we rehearsed it. I remember we rehearsed it as much as we could rehearse it on an 8 day shoot. I didn’t do any prep in L.A or anything. It was like, “Okay, you’re here.” I think I started the next day, the next morning, in terms of prepping for the fight.

David Read: Did Dan Shea play a part in that, the stunt coordinator?

Rick Worthy: Yeah, he did.

David Read: Good guy.

Rick Worthy: I worked with Dan, he was our stunt coordinator on The Magicians, all five seasons. I hadn’t worked with Dan since Stargate so it had been a long time.

David Read: He’s a good guy.

Rick Worthy: He had a really good eye for choreographing the whole thing. They told me there was gonna be sort of this revolving…

David Read: Yeah, it’s like a circular track or a semi circular track where the camera slides on it and they shoot it at a higher frame rate. That thing must have made a lot of noise when it was running with all the film that was going through it.

Rick Worthy: Yeah. I said, “this is cool. This looks like some next generation technology. I love it.” I love learning stuff, I thought it was so fun. I was like, “man, they’re doing all this for the fight. This is gonna be one hell of a fight.” And dude, how cool were the Brazilian Capoeira guys?

David Read: Yes. In cannon it’s called mastaba. K’tano’s fighting style it was called. It’s a good thing, you can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Rick Worthy: Exactly. Just as a quick little sidenote, I was so inspired from this episode of Stargate in terms of the mastaba that I said, “You know what, I’m gonna maybe sit in on a class or try to take a class in Vancouver.” I happened to have a friend who was studying, I always mispronounce it, Capoeira, mastaba. She was studying in Vancouver, she said, “Do you want to come to my class with me? Maybe you can sit in or maybe you can participate?” I went one time!

David Read: What happened? They kick your butt?

Rick Worthy: It was hard as hell. I am not kidding. I humbly say, “I’ve got training, I should be able to keep up a bit. Man!” You’re doing stuff like standing on your head in one second and then the next second year on your feet. You’re doing it without any kind of break in time, it flows. You’re moving and you’re moving and moving. I needed the very, very, very basic beginners class. It was really cool though, it was really, really interesting, fascinating to watch.

David Read: The final edit of that sequence is one of the coolest fights that Stargate ever gave us. It’s definitely one of those where, not only is his end goal to take care of Teal’c who has now put him in his place and made a challenge to the death, but he’s also having a great time flashing himself like a peacock and dancing around that court. He’s showing off to his crowd and I think it’s one of the reasons that Teal’c was able to just so simply stab him right into the chest. He’s so busy with impressing everyone; the goa’uld traits of him are coming out. “Not everyone’s in love with you like you are.”

Rick Worthy: Dude, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. Like I said, I watched it twice last night and I’ve watched it of course over the years. I think even one time I was somewhere in a hotel or something and I happened to flip on the TV and…

Rick Worthy: …there it was. I said, “oh, it’s Stargate.” It was near the beginning of the episode so “okay, I can watch it in its entirety.” I watched it and K’tano is flaunting throughout the fight, he’s making a show of it. I totally agree with you, just as you said that, I said “wow, you’re absolutely right.” That was his weakness, that was his Achilles heel and that’s what gave Teal’c…

David Read: There it was.

David Read: Exactly the moment. It’s the main reason all the goa’uld fall; they’re overconfident and they’re not as sharp as they think they are. As with all villains, “stop telling us your grand plan, just do it.”

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. Like Daniel Jackson said, I think he said they were trying to get some intel at the beginning of the episode, some intelligence on who K’tano is. I love that because they mention…

David Read: He’s a nobody.

Rick Worthy: We’ve gathered he’s kind of a nobody from a backwater planet, I believe Daniel Jackson says that. He’s trying to gather these Jaffa warriors to seek power.

David Read: You can already suggest from the circumstances that he has an inferiority complex. So when he gets the power that he gets, it’s like, “more now please” because he’s never really had it. I think that plays into it as well.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, he’s never really had it. He’s using this opportunity to get it.

David Read: So you were a fan of the show, tell us about working with Chris and Tony and Rick and all these heavy weights.

David Read: Good for you.

Rick Worthy: If you want to watch it, great, that’s fine. I’m not forcing anyone to watch anything I do. I’ll let them know that it’s coming on. But to be on set, as you said, with these heavyweights, man, I loved it. I was watching them and just absorbing what they were doing; learning from them as well. They were incredibly nice to me. When you’re a guest on somebody’s show, I’m not naming names or anything like that, but I’ve had some pretty bad experiences where I wasn’t treated so nicely by the regular cast and even the director of that episode.

Rick Worthy: Heavy weights, man. Heavy weights big time. I think a lot of times people don’t realize, when you tell someone “well, I did an episode of Stargate,” some people say, “are you on Stargate? Are you irregular on Stargate?” I’m like, “No, but I did an episode of Stargate” or an episode of Star Trek or whatever it is. Sometimes people, I’ve sadly discovered, they don’t particularly take it as seriously because you’re not on the show week to week to week to week. I’ve kind of had to get used to that and like, “Well, I’m really proud of what I did. It’s a terrific episode,” I humbly say.

David Read: Oh, come on man!

Rick Worthy: To have that sort of experience is not fun; it becomes a job at that point and then you just want to be done with it and then go home. But when I got to Vancouver, everybody, starting with Peter and Chris, they were so open arms. Peter gave me his phone number right away. I remember Chris was like, “Hey, nice to meet you,” he was really very, very nice and gracious. I remember I think he was waiting to see if I was the guy for the throne.

David Read: Absolutely, the Jaffa are his and Tony’s for all intents and purposes, you’re coming into their playpen. Bring it!

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. Yeah. The very first scene I did, I don’t know if you knew this, the first scene I did was inside the tent. It was everybody, it was O’Neill, Jackson.

David Read: You’re at the head of the table and they’re kind of around, okay.

Rick Worthy: We had just finished the fight against Nirrti’s jaffa and then we got the Zat’nik’tels.

David Read: You got it. The bounty, the spoils of war.

Rick Worthy: That was the word I had to keep practicing in my hotel room, Zat’nik’tel. You say [toe-may-toe] I say [toe-mar-toe], Zat’nik’tel. Try saying that twenty times.

David Read: But it stuck with you, that’s the important thing. That word will come in handy one day.

Rick Worthy: I want for Christmas, I want a Zat’nik’tel, that’s what I want.

David Read: I may be able to make that happen for you.

Rick Worthy: Hey, okay. Hey, I got a birthday coming up. So we got all the Zat’nik’tels and then we were in a tent. O’Neill says “so what are you planning to do with him?” K’tano says “we will give you a share of the spoils, for the rest, we require them all.” I remember seeing Chris, just out of the corner of my right eye, he was looking at me and then he’s just very very subtly started doing this [grinning and nodding].

David Read: “I like what I see.”

Rick Worthy: “I’m liking what I see,” without giving it all away. It totally could have been Teal’c doing that, it made sense.

David Read: So you haven’t done any speeches yet?

Rick Worthy: I hadn’t done anything, absolutely nothing. Literally my first time, my first dialogue, first words on set was that scene. It was a good scene to start with because I had to dive in right away and prove character right away. We finished, we did two, three takes, four takes, coverage and then K’tano leaves and says, my favorite line, “come with me to the Chappa’ai.” I’ve said that at different comic con conventions, “come with me to the Chappa’ai.” You just don’t say that.

David Read: No you don’t.

Rick Worthy: It’s just wonderful. I love it, it’s perfect. Any real actor wants to say those words, it’s amazing. I said “oh, I’m going to just enjoy this. Come with me to the Chappa’ai” but as K’tano. Like you said, with the flexing of the robe and everything, “just come with me, boom.” We finished and Chris comes up to me and he goes like this, [nodding head] “Nice, nice job.” It was some point later in my day one, he says, “when we’re done shooting I’m giving you my cell phone number.”

David Read: “You are family.” [The Godfather reference]

Rick Worthy: Yeah, you’re family. “Just when I try to get out, they bring me back in.” He said “nice, nice job.” I said “thank you man.” We had never met before, I knew who he was.

David Read: This is someone you’ve watched.

Rick Worthy: I’ve watched him on Stargate and probably a couple of other things. I remember him clear, I said, “that’s Teal’c man from Stargate, Christopher Judge.” He said, “we’re gonna go out. We’re gonna work hard, we’re gonna put in a hard day’s work, we’re gonna put it in the can and then we’re gonna go out.”

David Read: That’s right.

Rick Worthy: He took me out. I say this and I hope people are listening. I have never to this day had someone from another show come up to me and say, “here’s my number.” I’m guesting on their show, “here’s my phone number, you’re in my city, we’re going to go out and we’re going to have fun and we’re going to enjoy this. For the eight days we have together we’re going to go out.” Not every night, we went out three, four times. He made himself available to me and really kind of took me out around Vancouver. I’ve never had anyone offer that before. I’m not looking for it, let me just first say that, but it made a difference because he made me feel welcome. I had a lot to carry, man, that’s a heavy role. He wanted to make sure that not only did I do my job on set, but that I was enjoying my time in Vancouver.

David Read: The cast and the crew of that show are exceptional. I have them come on here now, two decades later, and they carry the same…how do I want to put it? It’s like, “okay, we’re talking about Stargate now. We’re going to have the same fun, we’re going to take this with the same amount of seriousness and levity.” Brad Wright always said, “life’s too short. If you’re going to come on the set, we’re gonna have a good time, we’re gonna make a great product that we’re all proud of and then we’re gonna go home, we’re gonna barbecue” and everything else like that. It has not gone away. They’ve all carried that mantra with them, at least as far as when I bring up Stargate, again, this is one of the Stargate playpens, what I’m trying to do here. It’s still there, it’s still present. One of the things that Chris said when the three of us were together a couple of years ago, is that he had a chance to hear you. I forget the circumstance in one of your speeches, before.Rick did, before Rick was on set. Rick got on set and then he heard…

Rick Worthy: You mean Richard Dean Anderson?

David Read: Richard Dean Anderson. Richard Dean Anderson got on set and then heard you speak to the crowd and Rick turned to Christopher Judge and Chris went, [nods] “I told you.”

Rick Worthy: I did not know that, thank you for telling me. The guest actor comes in, hits his mark, says the lines, goes home. She or he goes home.

David Read: A lot of the time that’s all it is.

Rick Worthy: That’s all it is, yeah. You come in, you come out; the show is really about the regular cast. But for years and years I’ve always wondered, “who’s seeing my audition? Who’s making the decision? You always wonder about that.

David Read: So much that’s out of your hands.

Rick Worthy: It’s out of my hands, yeah. Well, thanks.

David Read: Absolutely. I want to bring in some fan questions that have been submitted.

Rick Worthy: Okay.

David Read: There’s a lot that I still want to talk to you about and some of it actually includes this here. I could go on and on about Galactica and all this other stuff.

Rick Worthy: I am going to drink some water.

David Read: Please, proceed.

Rick Worthy: I would normally drink some wine or some beer but I’m cleaning up the body today.

David Read: Yeah, there you go. Keith Homel wants to know – what have you been interested in personally, lately? I’m guessing what he means by that is, I’m guessing, entertainment or anything that has helped to distract you through these COVID times.

Rick Worthy: I’m sure all of us have an answer for that one.

Rick Worthy: What I’ve been doing is I’ve been exercising indoors a lot, what I can do indoors. All the gyms are closed here in L.A. I’ve been reading. Barack’s [Obama] book is 740 something pages long.

David Read: Hopefully.

Rick Worthy: This is part one of two books, there’s another one coming later. What I had been doing, I was actually talking to one of my closest friends who lived in New York. I was having a really rough week, I was like, “Man, the fatigue of being shut in.” I told her that and she said, “Well, you should rediscover some of the things that you love” and she was right. I said, “you know what? I’m going to start watching films that I love and studied in college over the years.” I’ve been watching some Akira Kurosawa films like Ran and Throne of Blood; classic, epic, huge…

David Read: It’s a long one.

David Read: Yeah, nothing dainty about those.

Rick Worthy: Exactly, right. Kagemusha, Ran, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, so I’ve been doing that. I watched Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard, I watched [The] 400 blows by Francois Truffaut, I watched those yesterday. I’ve seen them but it’s been a long time. I’ve been sort of rediscovering my love of cinema again and the different styles; neoItalian, neorealism and…

David Read: There’s a tonne.

Rick Worthy: It’s so many, yeah. One of my favorite films of all time is Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica. That’s 1948 that film came out and it still is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. It’s so touching, man.

David Read: I’ll have to check it out.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, Bicycle Thieves. It’s a man and his 12 year old, 10 year old son, Bruno, post war World War Two Rome. The guy needs a job and he finds a job, he has to support his wife and his son and himself. He goes to the employment office which is a mile long, the lineup is out the door, and they find a job for him as a guy who puts up movie posters on the sides of buildings. Like Rita Hayworth, starring Humphrey Bogart, but he has to be the guy that glues it on the wall.

David Read: Actually puts it on.

Rick Worthy: Actually puts it on. I thought that was interesting because that is someone who does that, interesting work. This job only required one thing; that he had a bicycle so he can get around town, around Rome, and put up the movie posters. So his first huge challenge was finding a bicycle.

David Read: Got it, hence the name.

Rick Worthy: Hence the name Bicycle Thief. He finds a bicycle, he pays for this bicycle and then he’s putting up his posters. He’s happy because he’s got money to support his family, enough money for them to make it and eat food and everything, pay the rent and everything. Then he turns around and his bicycle has gone, someone stole it. The movie becomes about him and this cutest little kid, I forget the actor’s name, is amazing. Him and his son, Bruno, finding the bicycle, that’s the movie. Man, when you’re done, you’re just like this [head in hands crying]. Tears.

David Read: I have friends who are like, “Oh, I don’t watch anything before 1980. I don’t watch anything from before I was born because I can’t take it seriously. It’s like, “boy, are you missing out!” I watched Metropolis for the first time a couple of years ago. There’s no dialogue, it’s all music and I was captivated. It’s really one of the first sci-fi films, if not the first of all time, and it’s riveting.

Rick Worthy: I’m so glad you brought Metropolis up because it’s been so many years since I’ve seen it. Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s 1930 something?

David Read: It’s pretty early, yeah. I don’t know how they didn’t kill a number of kids when that whole underground flooded. It’s like “how do they shoot some of that stuff?”

Rick Worthy: I have no idea, yeah. You’re looking at that and you’re like, that’s the question I was asking yesterday, I was like, “how did they shoot that scene?”

David Read: Yeah. How’d they get that done?

Rick Worthy: There’s no CGI, there’s nothing, no modern technology. I know what I’m looking at and how do they do it?

David Read: You don’t need it. CGI has made us soft in some places. There is a style of filmmaking that is just fading away, it’s too bad. There’s still some good stuff coming out though.

Rick Worthy: There’s some great stuff out there, man. I’ve been accused of probably binge watching too much TV. I binge watched Jack Ryan.

David Read: Yeah. How is that with what’s his face from The Office? Krasinski.

Rick Worthy: Krasinski, yeah, he’s terrific. It’s a really, extremely well done spy show, all about espionage. I think they shoot on location in various parts, like Venezuela and London. I’m like, “Where are these people? I want to be on that show.”

David Read: “I want to go,” absolutely. I imagine there are some cases, and maybe not, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this. Where “I’ve got to pay the bills, I’ve got to do the work. It’s not the best dialogue but this is what I do so I’m going to do the best I can with it.”

Rick Worthy: For sure.

David Read: Not everything that you get to work on, I’m sure, in terms of a product or a show is a home run. You just can do what you can with it.

Rick Worthy: You do what you can with it. I think one of the things that clearly hit home for me when I did The Magicians and also The Man in the High Castle was that it’s hard to really get…When you get a pilot done, a), and then it goes to season one; that’s an accomplishment.

David Read: Yeah, in and of itself.

Rick Worthy: In and of itself; getting the pilot picked up to go to series. First of all, getting the pilot made, number one, and then number two, having it go to season one is a big deal. I think a lot of people don’t understand. Even my own parents, I don’t think they really still get it, and my brother as well. Not to fault them, but someone recently said to me, “why don’t you tell your agent to get you on Star Trek Discovery?” Like it’s that easy.

David Read: Like you can just click your fingers? There’s a whole process.

Rick Worthy: There’s an entire process. For even Star Trek Discovery to become Star Trek Discovery, they had to jump through 12 hurdles, if not more. It’s not an easy feat to get something made. When it’s made and it goes to season one, then you’re hoping season two. I remember when Magicians went to season three, we were just like this [shocked]. Like the Home Alone kid, you’re like [hands either side of face in shock].

David Read: Yeah exactly, it’s a golden ticket.

Rick Worthy: It really is a moment to celebrate. I think something really, really cool and fun to work on and really, really good, like Stargate and Star Trek, man, I would love it. But it’s not like it’s exactly in the making, you know? Or at least I don’t know about it.

David Read: When I reached out to you to have you on this, I had a conversation with Darren, my business partner. He said, “you know he’s in The Magicians, right?” I said, “I think I’d heard about it” but now I really want to go and see it but I want to binge it from the beginning. Is it over now? Is it finished?

Rick Worthy: It’s over, yeah.

David Read: Did it get cancelled or was it properly resolved?

Rick Worthy: It got canceled.

David Read: Shoot.

Rick Worthy: We went to five seasons. I’m showing my age again but, you know. When I came to L.A. a season was 22, 24 episodes. Now, especially with streaming platforms like Netflix, and Hulu and Amazon…

David Read: They shoot them down so fast if they’re not huge sensations.

Rick Worthy: Exactly. And the number of episodes are typically half that; they’re 10, 12, 13 episodes. We did five seasons of 13 episodes each season. Man in the High Castle was even less, it was four seasons of 10 episodes. But you’re happy to be going from season to season, regardless of how many episodes.

David Read: Teresa McAllister – Rick, what is your dream role that you haven’t had a chance to play yet?

Rick Worthy: I used to say Jimi Hendrix.

David Read: Okay. All right.

Rick Worthy: “Purple Haze all in my brain!”

David Read: I can see that.

Rick Worthy: “Oh baby, excuse me while I kiss the sky.” [playing guitar]

David Read: I’ll buy that. I will go and buy that ticket.

Rick Worthy: I’ll buy that for $1. That was a reference from Robocop.

David Read: Absolutely.

Rick Worthy: One of my favorite films is Robocop one?

David Read: The original, yes sir.

Rick Worthy: The orignal, yeah.

David Read: “Dick, you’re fired!” “Thank you.”

Rick Worthy: “Mighty fine shooting son.”

David Read: That’s exactly right.

Rick Worthy: Man, he was just freaking amazing as Robocop. Wonderful guy, I worked with him on Odyssey 5, I think.

David Read: Oh you did? Okay.

Rick Worthy: I did one episode of Odyssey 5 in Toronto and he was just a sweetheart, sweetheart of a guy. It used to be Jimi Hendrix. I will go ahead and say I’m just too old for that, I’m twice Jimi Hendrix’s age now.

David Read: They have de-aging makeup and they have CG.

Rick Worthy: The have CG, yeah. They did that to Brad Pitt.

David Read: That’s true. All the way down to baby.

Rick Worthy: All the way down to the little bitty baby, little baby Brad Pitt.

David Read: That was so weird. Oh gosh.

Rick Worthy: I think now I’m such a superhero fanatic, I love superheroes. I love all the Marvel Universe stuff, some of the DC stuff. I love Wonder Woman. I’m one of the few people that love Batman vs. Superman.

David Read: I’ll forgive you.

Rick Worthy: I love all of the Marvel films, all of them.

David Read: They’re just fun.

Rick Worthy: They’re just fun, man. They’re just fun. No disrespect to Sam Jackson but I would love a shot at Nick Fury, at the character. He’s been in my head for a few years and I’m constantly thinking about him; ideas about him and his backstory. I think that they just haven’t really given Nick Fury a chance to shine. He’s the boss. To me, Nick Fury is the ultimate agent, he’s a spy and he’s super, super badass. I see him more in the direction of like a Jason Bourne.

David Read: One of the things, the frustration, of Marvel being a Disney product is you can only go so dark with it. There are layers to him that we just will not get to see because the eight year olds have got to be able to go to the theater. But you know what? There could be animated adaptations or something else that you could sink your teeth into for it.

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. I think anything’s possible, especially now with Disney being the champion of Marvel stuff now, right? What’s it called? Disney+?

David Read: Yes, Disney+.

Rick Worthy: Disney+, which I don’t have but everyone says I need to get it so we’ll see.

David Read: Anything’s possible.

Rick Worthy: Anything’s possible.

David Read: Teresa also wanted to know – you haven’t done a whole lot of narration, like audiobooks. One of the things I did was check Audible. Dude, I would love to hear you narrate a book.

Rick Worthy: Thank you so much, man. Gosh. That’s so kind of you, thank you so much. And Teresa, thank you. I have not. I’ve never done an audio book, nothing like that. People have asked me that before. I have narrated a couple of documentaries, not a lot. I did one that was about…a friend of mine, his wife was a producer and the guy that she wanted couldn’t narrate this documentary about kung fu.

David Read: What’s its name?

Rick Worthy: I can’t remember.

David Read: Okay.

Rick Worthy: It’s been so many years. It’s been a long time. A long time ago, like 20 years ago. She sent me over all the stuff and I said, “this is great, I love martial arts. This is right up my alley.” I narrated in place of someone else and it worked out fine. I said, “I would really like to do more of this.” Everyone has a different experience with voiceover narration; it’s a very hard nut to crack.

David Read: Yeah, it’s not easy.

Rick Worthy: It’s not easy man.

David Read: There’s a certain easy pacing to it and it’s not as easy as it sounds, pardon the pun.

Rick Worthy: It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been dying to tell this story, I’m so glad that Teresa asked that question. I remember my agent sent me in, years ago when I had a voiceover agent, she sent me in to audition for a commercial or something. They were bringing in just nine people; it wasn’t a cattle call. There’s just nine, maybe ten people, and I walk into the room and there’s Ed Asner sitting down waiting to go in. You’re talking about a legend waiting to go in and he was so sweet and so nice. He was coming in, I think I was going out to use the restroom but he was coming in. I said, “okay, they’re bringing in Ed Asner to audition.” Then legendary actor named Brock Peters.

David Read: I love Brock.

Rick Worthy: You know Brock Peters?

David Read: Not him personally, but To Kill a Mockingbird and Admiral Cartwright, come on. Absolutely. And Mr. Cisco.

Rick Worthy: Mr. Cisco. Carmen Jones, [sings tune] one of my favorite films, Carmen Jones. Terrific. I’m sitting down and I turn to my right, it’s Brock Peters. He was the nicest, coolest dude, he was 75 years old. He said, “Hello, how are you?” I said, “I’m fine.” He’s studying his lines, Ed Asner comes back and he’s studying his lines. I said, “Okay, this is a serious level audition.” I didn’t get the role, probably they gave it to a name actor for that. It’s hard nut to crack; they want a recognizable voice right away, often.

David Read: I can understand, but still, just keep fighting for it man. I would love to hear it. “One Night in March,” in 2013, you recorded a narration for that.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, I did. Yeah.

David Read: Basketball game. Yeah.

Rick Worthy: Ole Miss I believe. Yeah, I did that. I can’t remember the year, was it 1953, 1954?

David Read: 1963. There you go.

Rick Worthy: Massive year for civil rights.

David Read: Yes.

David Read: Okay. I mean, when God turns you down what are you gonna do?

Rick Worthy: 1963. I did that and I think the gentleman was a fan of…the producer, gosh. I believe he is from Kentucky or Mississippi. Mississippi, because it’s about Ole Miss. He called my agent and said, “Would your client, Rick Worthy, be interested in narrating my documentary? We were going to get Morgan Freeman but he said no.”

Rick Worthy: Yeah. He knew about me only because he loved Battlestar Galactica.

David Read: Ah, there you go.

Rick Worthy: So I thought that was really kind of him to say that. We were talking and he said, “my first guy wasn’t available and he wasn’t interested.” I said, “Who’s your first guy?” he said “Morgan Freeman.” I said, “Oh.”

David Read: But I’m in good company.

Rick Worthy: I hope. I said, “Look, I’ll happily do this” and so we did it. I probably saved them a fair amount of money by not having Morgan Freeman.

David Read: Oh gosh. William R – and I definitely share his sentiments on this. “Did you have fun playing Jannar, the Arboreal in Enterprise? My favorite single season of Star Trek ever. I’ve loved it all but there is something about that [season]. A lot of people disagree with me because Enterprise isn’t on top of list. They went full bore in that season and you were a part of that under all of that fur.

Rick Worthy: Under all fur! I look like Chewbacca’s cousin or something. I’m sure you know this…by the way, before we continue, I just love your room.

David Read: Oh thank you.

Rick Worthy: I’ve been wanting to tell you that since we started.

David Read: Thank you.

Rick Worthy: If you have any minute towards the end, I would love for you to just tell me about it.

Rick Worthy: That’d be awesome dude.

David Read: If you can hang on after the show when I wind it down, we can talk a minute.

David Read: “I don’t want to lose him when I disconnect from us. I can’t call him back, I don’t have his number.” Sure, we’ll talk in a minute.

Rick Worthy: [I have to get some tips] for my mancave.

David Read: I may be able to set you up. Jannar, you didn’t have a great deal, but he was so cool, with Randy Oglesby and I forget the name of Dolim.

Rick Worthy: Randy, he’s a sweetheart of a guy. We had Tucker Smallwood.

David Read: Tucker Smallwood, that’s right. He was one of the primates.

Rick Worthy: Yep, and then…I can’t remember everyone’s name.

David Read: Yeah. I can’t think of who it was who played Dolim but what a great group of cast.

Rick Worthy: Terrific actor, yeah, it was amazing. We all gelled together pretty fast. You were in the makeup chair pretty early, you’re sitting there for two and a half hours and they put all this stuff on you. What I was going to say is there are actors who can do can do the glue under the eyelid at 6am and there are actors who cannot do it. I’m one of those actors, I love it, I think it’s awesome. I’m like, “This is great man. You guys need me in at 5am, I will be there.”

David Read: You’re unrecognizable in that role. It’s your voice, it’s like, “ah, that’s Rick. Rick’s under there.”

Rick Worthy: Yeah, it was a fun role. I love working with Scott Bakula, everybody was really just awesome and they were really, really kind.

David Read: Did you watch that full season?

Rick Worthy: Yeah.

David Read: Okay. I was gonna say, “watch it, it’s good from beginning to end.”

Rick Worthy: I watched it and I think it’s awesome, I think it’s really, really, really exciting. Sadly, they canceled Enterprise, I believe, right after that season.

David Read: One more season and then it ended. It was way ahead of its time in terms of doing a serialized show. September 11th had happened and they wanted to take it in a different direction and boy, they did and you got to be a part of that. That’s really cool. Kevin Leach – how imposing was Chris Judge? Were you intimidated at all at first?

Rick Worthy: I think I told you guys this in Vancouver when we were doing the MGM…

David Read: Dialing Home? Yeah.

Rick Worthy: I would love to talk to you about getting a copy of that if I could.

David Read: Yeah. I’ll hook you up.

Rick Worthy: Okay, cool. I have told people in interviews that I’ve done over the years, people say, “what was it like working with Chris Judge?” I’m like, “well, it was awesome. It was fun. We worked hard in the daytime, we went out at nighttime. I love the guy. I have seen him at DragonCon three years ago and I learned a lot from him.” But in real life, in real life, I don’t think I would stand a chance. Chris is…I haven’t seen in a long time.

David Read: He’s imposing. He’s only gotten bigger since the show ended.

Rick Worthy: Really? Wow.

David Read: Yeah. Just in terms of like, size.

Rick Worthy: In size? When we got there, I said, “Well we’re kind of a similar height” but he’s just huge. Big, he looks like an NFL player. A gentle giant and I just fell in love with him. I thought he was an amazing, sweet, sweet guy to work with. I was hoping for that, you never know until you meet someone.

David Read: Yeah, especially people that you idolize in any way; they can crush your soul.

Rick Worthy: Oh dude. I’m not going to name names, but yes, that’s true.

David Read: It’s happened to almost all of us.

Rick Worthy: So he was the opposite of that, ye was just totally nice and so cool. I kept thinking, “how does he have time to work out man?” He must be working 14, 16 hours a day but he still maintained the bam you know? The Jaffa warrior, just ultimate warrior build. I thought that was really, really awesome and challenging, I think, to maintain that over 10 years. I’m typically more like my mom’s brothers; sort of tall and lean. Chris had a good 40 pounds over me at least.

David Read: Well, since he stopped drinking he’s become a physical version of Kratos, he’s just ridiculous in size. Raj and William want to know – if this fourth Stargate series that Brad’s working on, I’ve been calling it SG-4.

Rick Worthy: Is there another one?

David Read: He’s trying with MGM, we’ll see. “If a new Stargate series does happen to get itself off the ground, would you like to come back for an additional role and what kind of character would you like to play?”

Rick Worthy: Thanks for the question. I would only want to come back if it was a good role, either as a guest or a regular on the show. I would have to like it, that’s all, that’s my rule for anything. I love the people. In this case, if it’s the same people; if Brad, Peter’s involved? I would be interested because I enjoyed working with them but if it was a role that wasn’t so much to my liking, I probably wouldn’t be interested in it.

David Read: Okay, that’s fair. We’ll see what happens, I’m very hopeful.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, for sure. I didn’t know that until 15 seconds ago.

David Read: There you go. I liked that you said, “it would have to be the right role.” You’re someone who recognizes that you have a certain amount of resources and a certain amount of talent and I want to put it to use in this way. That’s really fair. Your franchise list, holy cow! You’ve collected them like trading cards; there’s some great ones in there, man.

David Read: There is man. I’ve enjoyed each one, I think they all have their own special place.

David Read: And entertainment that says something. We didn’t talk about Galactica nearly enough, it just goes so deep. I really, really detested The Plan except for the fact that Simon got fleshed out.

Rick Worthy: Totally. Why did you not like The Plan?

David Read: I didn’t like The Plan because I felt like the Cylons basically said, “there wasn’t really a plan, we’ve kind of been making this up as we go along.” The mantra of the show was, “…and they have a plan.” We were expecting this latticework of strategy and didn’t really get that. My other beef with it is that a lot of the characters that I loved were not in it at all. It was like Battlestar – if we look over here and see what’s going on here. Simon got to shine in that and a couple of the other characters did as well. Michael [Trucco], so there was some good points about that and I’m sure having Eddie [Edward James Olmos] direct was amazing.

Rick Worthy: That was amazing, yeah. It was a classic case of I really needed the job; I actually needed work again. Also I was happy, as you just said, Simon was so fleshed out. I complained to my agent, I said, “they’re flying me up to Vancouver to say, ‘we agree’ or ‘I concur’.” Just those two words “and cut” and you wrap and you get back on the plane and get your ass back to L.A.

David Read: Fantastic. It looks great. There’s a couple of episodes where all the Cylons are in one shot but nothing was going on for you. Then the show ends, he got shot on the bridge, what happens next? Well, here’s the plan, so that was great about that.

Rick Worthy: Absolutely. I liked being directed by Eddie. He really pushed me, all of us, and forced us to bring out the very best we can bring out. He’s very focused all the time.

David Read: God, what an icon!

Rick Worthy: Oh for sure. When I first met him I was thinking Miami Vice; that classic performance was amazing as well as all the films he’s done. He’s a super sweet guy and is sort of everyone’s dead on set. He’s constantly busy all the time, all the time, on the phone. If he’s not on the phone he’s ready to be on set. He directed us through The Plan and I remember I was really trying to break into the ComiCon convention world circuit and he helped me I remember calling him, I said, “Hey man, things are a bit tight. I would like to break into this world. I think have enough experience in sci-fi.”

David Read: I think so, yeah. Genre television, yeah.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, genre television, “can you point me in the right direction?” He didn’t even think twice. He said, “I’m going to hook you up with someone, I think she’ll be a good rep for you. I’ll call her and let her know you’re going to be calling her.” That’s how I got in.

David Read: Good for you.

Rick Worthy: Yeah. I am always grateful for that. He’s that kind of person who if he can help you, he will.

David Read: Good. That’s great to hear about that. Him and Michael Hogan have stayed tight, someone else who has had some tough times lately.

Rick Worthy: For sure man. I’m so glad you mentioned Michael Hogan, I love Michael Hogan. I know he’s going through a tremendous physical challenge at the moment, I hope he’s doing better. I recently donated to the GoFundMe page and it’s doing really well from what I saw, the numbers looked really, really, really nice. People were contributing a lot.

David Read: Yeah, I’m so thrilled. I go back every couple of weeks and check it out. It could not have happened for a nicer person to get that help.

Rick Worthy: He’s easily one of my favorite people in Battlestar Galactica. When I was living on the west side, me and buddy moved to Marina del Rey for two years, ended up hating it. When I was there I remember going to a 7-Eleven or something at like 11 or midnight. There’s nobody there except me and the cashier, west side of L.A. It’s not Hollywood, it’s a lot quieter. You know how you can feel someone standing behind you? You can just feel someone? Someone was standing literally directly behind me and I was like, “What the hell!” All I hear is this, “Are you a frackin Cylon?” It was Michael Hogan.

David Read: “Your gods damn right I am.”

Rick Worthy: You do that very well.

David Read: That voice…

Rick Worthy: That voice and his whole performance…”god damn it, Starbuck!” I turned around and we looked at each other and laughed our asses off. I was like, “man, oh my god, what the frak!”

David Read: What the frak? Colonel, you grew your eye back.

Rick Worthy: Oh god. He’s just that kind of guy.

David Read: That’s great.

Rick Worthy: I’m so sad to hear what happened to him but I’m also happy that he seems to be on road to recovery.

David Read: I think he’s gonna be okay. Last question for your Rick, Kevin Leach – what projects of yours are upcoming that we can support? Is there anything on the horizon that we can be on the lookout for?

Rick Worthy: I would say not at the moment in terms of a series or pilot because the pandemic has just shut everything down. Like I said, the week before the World World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, literally my very last job was for the Cartoon Network. I was this Ancient dinosaur who’s a king and he has this sort of feudal war between him and the other clan of dinosaurs over the next mountain. I said, “you know, this is really a sort of Renaissance Fair sort of speak. This is gonna be really fun.” This is for children and was perfect, perfect job for me. This is exactly what I want to do right now; I want to do cartoon and animation.

David Read: Yeah, just because it’s for kids doesn’t mean it’s dumbed down.

Rick Worthy: Absolutely and on a major network, the Cartoon Network, which I love so it was doubly awesome for me. They sent me over all the stuff, I was in London when I did it. They said, “we can do it from London, we’ll find a place” so I went and that was really fun to be in another country and do the voiceover. They’re watching on Skype as I’m doing the whole thing and they said, “just have fun with it.” I made him sound a lot like Dean Fogg on The Magicians, but maybe turned up just a touch.

David Read: A little to the Dean in there. I’m looking forward to seeing this show, I’m gonna have to go turn around and watch it.

Rick Worthy: There’s a lot of swearing in that show.

David Read: What doesn’t these days? Even Star Trek does. I have a real problem with that one, but anyway. Rick, this has been fantastic.

Rick Worthy: Yeah, this has been so much man. Thank you so much. I’m glad we were able to do this and thank you so much.

David Read: Absolutely. We’re gonna be doing commentaries next season, I would love to have you on to have a commentary on The Warrior.

Rick Worthy: Of course.

David Read: I’m hoping to get Chris, so we’ll see. Will you hang on for me while I wrap up the show?

Rick Worthy: Yeah, absolutely.

David Read: I’ll be right back with you. Thank you so much, you take care of yourself.

Rick Worthy: Bye bye guys.

David Read: Rick Worthy everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to Dial the Gate. Before I let you guys go, I have fan art, K’tano fan art. The guest artist Rogue Dragon, “from my series that was inspired by Scully 7491. Some Ghibli-ish characters from my newest obsession, Stargate SG-1. Imhotep, he posed as his own ex-first prime to try and use the Jaffa’s desire for freedom against them.” I guess that’s what these things are called, these are Ghibli characters, they’re kind of really cool. Rogue Dragon. You can submit your original art at [email protected] Our sponsor, before I wind down, let me see, where did I get my note go? Oh, here it is. Dial the Gate has partnered with 3dtechPro for the month of December to give you a chance to get your very own desktop Stargate and customized Ancient keychain. To enter to win, you need to use a desktop or laptop computer and visit dialthegate.com, scroll down to “submit trivia questions.” Your trivia may be used in a future episode of Dial the Gate either for our monthly trivia night or for a special guest to ask me in a round of trivia. There are three slots for trivia; one easy, one medium, one hard. Only one needs to be filled in, you’re more than welcome to submit up to three though. Please note, the submission form does not currently work on mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before January 1st 2021. If you’re the lucky winner I’ll be notifying you via your email right after the start of the New Year to get your address and what word you want on your Ancient keychain. Be sure to check out our partners website for more Stargate related merchandise at 3dtech.Pro. This model of Atlantis, 3dtech.Pro. Isn’t it badass? There you go. If you want something like it, go check it out. All right. I appreciate you sticking around. We’re going to be having Garwin Sanford on in about 15 minutes here. I’m David Read, my thanks to Rick Worthy and we’ll see you on the other side.