LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

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Anne
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LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by Anne »

I edited this based on some suggestions about some stuff I didn't understand properly or didn't get. Thank you for filling the blanks!

I have a lot of footage from the talk on Saturday, however, not all of it. Some of the things he said I have to pull from memory and little bits were hard to understand so I tried filling in some blanks. He was great – and funny. :) And he looked VERY good. Not too tired, not nearly as exhausted as he seemed to be at FedCon. He was really all there.

When he came on stage, after the applause etc, the Mod opened the talk by telling us that we just missed a sight because Rick had changed his shirt backstage...

Mod (M): Well, Ladies – and some of the gentlemen – you just missed a sight with Richard changing his shirt backstage.

Audience (A): Wooohoooo!

RDA: Did you guys just do ‘woo-hoo’? (there’s more woohoo) Ye-ah, you haven’t seen me naked, that’s why (he pulls out his phone and starts filming the audience and there’s a lot of cheers and applause etc) We’re rolling! (walks from one end of the stage to the other, filming) This is for my daughter (he turns the phone around, filming himself) These are allll my friends! (turns back to the audience after turning off his phone) Thank you!

M: There you got it now, you’ve all been directed by Richard, that’s so nice.

RDA: Ya’ll have to sign a release for it. For my daughter’s movies... but enough fartin’ around, let’s get to work!

M: We’ll gonna come to questions, but I asked backstage if there’s anything you wanna talk about. You just mentioned your daughter’s movies...

RDA: Yeah, all in good time...

M: Is there nothing you’re up to you wanna talk about?

RDA: I’m up to raising my daughter, ‘s what I’m doing. So she can make movies and you know... keep me when I’m old and gray... oh, I’m gray and old right now, but... (grins and then sobers a little bit) no, my daughter Wylie is pursuing a career... she’s taking a running start at the theater part. She wants to go to Emmerson college, if anyone of you are familiar with it, It’s an excellent theater school in Boston and we’re fighting to get her in there next year. She’s graduating this next year from High School in California, that’s where we live. But enough about that – any questions?

Fan asks about how much of the O’Neill humor in SG-1 was scripted and how much of it wasn’t.

RDA: Wellll, as the story goes, early on I was... it was great having a job that I just kind of fell into so I took some kind of advantage of it and I was full of glee and improvisation and impulse, so when we first started the show I was at it in every weeks table read (I’m not sure he really said ‘every weeks’ or something else, if someone remembers, let me know) and I just ad libbed the whole thing and got laughs which is...tends to mark a disaster for me because, you know, feed me a laugh and I’ll keep going. (Eveyone laughs and Rick grins and says thank you) But as it turned out it was being … I was unaware of this and it changed the course of my behavior... it was just disrespectful of the actors... or the writers. Screw the actors (laughs and says something I didn’t get) … to the writers who had toiled to put together scripts that made sense and were exciting and all that and I was making... basically I was kind of making, uh, fun of... whatever the situation was and it was a very selfish endeavor. I realized that in a very direct conversation with Brad Wright and from that point on I said: You’re right, I got baaad... really baaad... So what I had to do was to calm down my impulses and to make sure that I was being true to the script and yet still brought some levity to the set and to the script itself and we found a happy balance. The more time went by of course the more I forgot what I promised, sooo... but any of the stuff that didn’t make sense was alll me.

The next part is missing, but there was talk about how much he liked working with AT and MS and it was kind of funny how he tested the waters by saying how much he loves them and the audience went kind of wild and he asked something along the lines of ‘You’re cheering for Michael Shanks there, right?’ and there must have been a lot of J/S shippers in the crowd because the reply to that was kind of negative and so he went on with “I love both of them. Of course I love Amanda more.” which caused a crazy moment of craziness. He's a clever guy and knows perfectly well how to figure out - and play - the audience. :) :)

That went on for a bit and he then went into how he was glad they gave all the techno babble to AT and all the other babbles to MS and how he would listen to them and in the end just had to go; “What?” - and it brought him a lot of laughs etc and at the end of that section someone in the audience yelled “Magnets” (in relation to, I think, Rite of Passage and Jack letting it slip that he’s smarter than Carter thinks and they were talking about magnets – but I don’t really get that together now) Anyway, RDA didn’t understand she yelled ‘magnets’ (and to be honest if I hadn’t known what she was talking about, I would have gotten it wrong, too)

So the gal yelled, “Magnets.”

And he went, “My tits? Is that what you just said? They’ll give you a microphone so you can say THAT out loud again.”

Fan: What was your favorite SG episode

RDA nearly spits out his water and pulls a face

M: Ah, that old chestnut. Thank you for delivering that question, it’s never been asked before.

RDA: That old chestnut! (then turning to the fan and looking kind of desperate) Do you know me at all? I mean, you’ve got any sense of what an idiot I am? And I have so little ability to retain things like that, like what kind of joy I was having at a (certain/particular?) point in an eight year stint of doing a hundred and some other thousands of... (pauses and pretends to think) My favorite was the first one! (makes funny faces and then attempts to get serious again) You’re talking about Stargate? Yeah, my pat answer is that I always had a lot of fun doing... I have it at the tip of my tongue..

Fan: Brief Candle!

RDA: Thank you! There’s my conscience sitting right there. Brief Candle, where I got to spend four hours in a make up chair, getting this old man make up put on and got to behave like a 100 year old guy which allows you to pinch all the girls butts all the time and get away with it... sort of... I only got arrested twice... No, it was just the fact that as an actor it was fun to have an excellent professional make up job done and they were working with some technical discoveries that would put the make up right to your skin and it would not tear apart when they were taking it off (I think that’s what he said but basically it was about the make up not falling off or tearing apart when you move or laugh etc and that it would still be in one piece when taken off the skin). So it was like anything you were doing was happening just as if you had real old wrinkling skin... which I’m starting to experiencing right now... for real... (pulls at his face/cheeks) hence the you should see me naked some time... layering wrinkly (again am not positive that’s exactly what he said) Nobody wants to hear that, do they?

Fan: I would!

RDA: You would? Thank you.

Fan: I love that t-shirt (some creature / zombie / demon stick figure and underneath the words Grrrrr and Arrrrgh. I know now that it's the Joss Whedon production logo) Have you ever thought about being in Buffy and if you had, what part would you have liked to play?

RDA: What?

Fan: You’ve got that t-shirt from Buffy

RDA (looks down at himself) This is Buffy? Grrrrr, arrrgh... Who’s the guy that’s...

Fan: Joss Whedon.

RDA: Joss! Yeah... I didn’t know this is from Buffy. Seriously. This is how much of a sci-fi fan I am. No, I am... not really. What part would I play? Buffy of course. It gets paid the most. It’s all about the money, right? (laughs) No, I’m not too familiar with the show to know, but, you know, the best part. Whatever that was. (thinks for a moment) Wasn’t that the show where … did they all turn into different things or was that a different show? Didn’t they just crystalize into things or was that all about wolves and...

Fan: None of the above

RDA: None of the above? (sighs) I’m prepared...

M: It was usually either vampires or lesbians

RDA: My two favorite people!

M: What were your favorite shows growing up?

RDA: Well, a local television in Minneapolis was ‘Axel and his dog’. If there is one person out here that knows ‘Axel and his dog’ I’ll marry you.

A guy raises his hand

M: Someone claims to know

RDA: Sorry, sir. … (goes back to the question)... I didn’t watch a lot of television as a kid. Saturday morning cartoons and such. But I was always outside, doing something.

M: You were quite active at sports and everything...

RDA: Yeah, I heard about that!

M: Yeah, I have Wikipedia here! Tell us about that enormous bike ride you did because I can’t quite imagine that.

RDA: You guys know all about that, right? Okay... When I was a 17 year old juvenile delinquent I was looking for something to do over the summer and a couple of my buddies were taking a repeat trip up to Canada on ten speed bikes and they asked me... no, I asked them... no, I told them I was gonna go with them and we spent the three months in the summer just cycling around southern Canada and northern and western and all the way up to Alaska and back down around, about a 5600 miles bike trip that seriously altered the course of my life because I really was kind of looking for something to destroy, probably myself, at 17. I just didn’t know what I was gonna do because I wasn’t good enough to play professional hockey all my life and you can’t make a lot of money skiing and those were the two things I could do quite well and didn’t matter. So I went on that bike trip and it kind of pacified me and it kind of gave me some... three months of being virtually alone... probably two of those months being cycling alone specifically... can do things to you head and your heart and all of which were altered by that trip. I created a dialogue with farm animals I’d see along the way. They were slow to respond so I was throwing punchlines back over my shoulder... (shakes his head) never mind. But I made it and I came back and I was better for the experience.

And as a special treat we have ten speed bikes for all of you tonight – if you promise to do an 5000 mile bike trip.

M: Let’s talk about MacGyver. How long did you have to be in make up to get the mullet into shape?

RDA: No time at all. (to audience) Hair! Let’s talk about hair! I still have some … or it... most of it, but it was kind of an inadvertent thing; I kind of slipped into it. I obviously don’t pay much attention to my hair and it just kept growing and growing and the hair guy one day started clipping and trimming and putting it behind my … (brushes hair behind his ear and then slaps hands over his face and moans) I can’t believe I’m talking like this! About my mullet! It was a mullet, c’mooon. Rod Stewart … who we don’t like anymore, by the way, because he had a seal skin jacket made for himself quite publicly...

Fan: A coat!

RDA: A coat, right. it’sssss... anyway, don’t let me get political. I knooow, he’s British... wait, no, he’s not...

M: Yeah, he is, he claims to be Scottish, but he’s (mumble mumble, sorry)... which is London.

RDA: Okay, anyway, that’s political stuff and I’m gonna stay out of that. But, ah, what was it... ahhh, mullets!

M: But let’s talk about MacGyver. Do you remember shooting here in Britain (he said some more stuff which I don’t have, but this was the question basically)

RDA: After the series I had what it’s called a development deal with Paramount and part of that included my producing of...

(a small child starts crying)

RDA (in a very soft voice) Awww, I’m sorry, it wasn’t that bad of an experience... (then cont. in his normal voice:) So we hired a writer and all got into one room and we wrote two scripts that we did back to back here in London. Here’s something that you should be proud of... I know there are a lot of French ppl in the audience (there are cheers). We went to France first and Paramount France tried to overcharge for some things...

M: It was the head dressing budget, wasn’t it?

RDA (to M) Yeah, they didn’t know how to cut a mullet (to audience) If you ever get to see those episodes, you’ll understand, cause that’s one mullet gone crazy, totally out of control. Anyway... so we just decided to come to London instead and we were better for the experience. That was actually when I fell in love with your country, especially its lovely country side which... (cringes) I’ve never been to actually, buuut...

M: You should take a bike ride from Land’s End to John O'Groats (I think that's what he said).

RDA: I think your roads are a little skinny for that.

There is more here about shooting locations but I don’t have that, so sorry. But he ended that section with saying how much he loves Great Britain and that he loves France too. There was also a question about Sea Shepherd which he talked about quite a bit and how he met Paul Watson, but that’s not on my footage either :( I had to be a bit careful because filming wasn’t really allowed, ehm. But they weren’t as strict about it as they were at FedCon. I got warned once, at a later point, but thankfully they didn’t throw me out.

Fan: If you wouldn’t have become an actor what would you have liked to become?

RDA: Well, luckily I have the perspective of an 65 old looking back, so I can easily say: now I’m glad I wasn’t a professional hockey player or anything like that. I probably would have done something in forestry to be honest. And I think – again in retrospect – I would have liked to become some kind of an architect. But knowing what I know about what it takes to become and architect or any kind of engineer... I don’t have the braincells for it. You gotta be smart to be able to do that with all the mathematics and physics and all that stuff involved. So I lucked out, to be honest with you, I can do a lot of things but none of which would sustain a life. Especially mine at the time. So, I honestly don’t know. (frowns) That’s … sad, isn’t it?

M: Being involved in two big hit shows there must be a lot of experience there. What was your worst experience?

RDA: Potentially the worst one was, I think it was... Stargate... I think we were shooting kind of into the evening or night and everyone was getting tired and we used a low angle camera and the camera assistant suddenly started convulsing and then just went stiff and stopped breathing. There were a lot of ppl around on the set, but the paramedics weren’t around to take charge. So I was at the feet of this camera man … I was at his feet because he was shaking and we calmed him down somewhat, but he was unconscious and I just looked around and said... because I was at his feet … I said; Somebody better do something up there. (There is more I didn’t get, but I think he said he was holding his feet to keep him steady so he couldn’t let go to help in more ways and then he went on:) I was kind of glad I wasn’t in the position to have to do what I could have done, but didn’t. I said somebody better do something up there on the other end of him or we’re in trouble. They started doing CPR on him and saved his life and then the paramedics showed up.

M: You started out on General Hospital. What’s it like to work on a soap – on an American soap?

RDA: I used General Hospital – again in retrospect … I guess what I was doing was getting my real life education in front of the camera, making all kinds of... you know, back in school I didn’t have anything like that. I was a theater born... (and here I had to stop filming with the camera because my SM card ran out of space. But I think what he said was that he learned all about making a TV Show at General Hospital because he’d never done that before)

I got out my cellphone after that and while the video quality isn’t good, the audio came out very nice :) But I missed the whole thing about with whom he would prefer to be stuck in an elebator, MacGyver, Jack O’Neill or Nicodemous Legend. To which he said that while Mac would
have been the smartest choice and that maybe even Jack would be okay, he’d always prefer Legend to be with him because the Legend character was very true to himself as he used to be when he was young. A bit of a misbehaving, cigar smoking, drinking fool – or something like that. But I’m not putting this together in all detail because there was so much going on that weekend and some things just didn’t stick. But we were happy he was talking about Legend so fondly.

By the time I got out my phone he was talking about being a celebrity. I don’t know the question, probably when did he realize that he’d made it as a celebrity etc. His answer was this:

RDA: It’s never a goal to be a celebrity. No one goes to college to study Celebrity 101. As an actor all I wanted to do was play and have fun and make enough to (I think he wanted to say ‘make enough to party’ or to sustain his wild life :))... back then I used to drink... that’s how far back it goes... So when I first started acting professionally I was in hog heaven. Because it was fun, they were paying me, and I was young and they were paying me... but as far as the knowing that I made it goes... I think I knew on the way when I had my daughter Wylie... when she came along I knew my life was going to change in a huge aggressive way and I talked to my personal manager, I told him that all I wanted to do is put enough money aside to put Wylie through college, wherever she wanted to go for education. And he said; Oh you have that already, don’t worry about it. And I was like: I MADE IT! That’s all it took to make me happy.

Fan asks question about more SG-1 or a 30 year anniversary reunion etc.

RDA: There’s been no talk about that, or at least not with me. I had no dialogue with any of the buddies up in Vancouver about a Stargate reboot or anything. There’s been some talk about bringing MacGyver back in some form. I got asked a couple of times. Whenever a regime at a studio changed some newbee in that group came out to me and ask if I would be MacGyver again. Which is ludicrous to me! At one point I said I would only be MacGyver again if MacGyver could be as old as I am, as fat as I am and as cranky as I am. Which I actually thought were some good points because it would make for a far more interesting character than trying to watch me play a much younger guy as MacGyver. But that never happened.

Fan asks... I don’t know what he or she asked but it had to do with all the things Mac did and were they really working etc. Another old chestnut :)

RDA: (he said something before but I don’t have that on video) Mac had to be in the mountains with lots of bamboo trees. And you know the way of shooting MacGyver was that you would see him doing things, gathering things and see him putting things together. So we did that over a period of time – with commercials – and by the end of it, of course, the character would use some kind of motor engine, bamboo posts, some kind of canvas as wings. And they (not sure who ‘they’ were, I think he was talking about Mythbusters) tried to disprove it – they experimented with all the materials we used and said that the plane would actually do this: (indicates a plane crashing down like a stone with his hand) Boom. It wouldn’t have been able to get off the ground at all, it was way too heavy. So they experimented with stuff, lightened everything and they got their plane to fly almost the same pattern as it did on the show.

He also talked about Sea Shephed and how he met Paul Watson and he also talked about his farting contests with Chris Judge which was hilarious - especially since he kept apologizing and saying he couldn't believe he was talking about this kind of crap :P But again I don't have any of that on video, sorry.

That’s all I got because here I was told to stop filming because it wasn’t allowed ‘cough’. I know he ended his talk with telling us how much he appreciated that we came to the con and that he knew it was hot and muggy and crowded and oh-so-pathetic (snort) but that we all came and he loved us for it and he loved being here and thanked us all.
Last edited by Anne on Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Root
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by Root »

Thank you very much for this transcript! I laughed. Wish I had been there :(
He's such a great guy.

Thank you again
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by Anja »

Thanks a lot for your effort. Believe it or not - my dog's name is BUFFY (a Malinois) and the idea of RDA wanting to be Buffy is just...I leave it to all of you to finish that sentence. Buffy would ferociously disagree with him being her - I wouldn't if it was temporarily! :lol:
Have a nice day. Anja
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by bftlovesRDA »

Thank you so much, Anne, for posting this transcript! What a very fun event! It really means a lot that you would post this - it is great!
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

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Thank you Anne :)
Very nice....he is so funny.
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that does not have to know the mind.


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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by Jemster »

Anne wrote:
RDA: Well, a local television in Minneapolis was ‘Excellent as (I don’t have a clue and I tried to google, but I could not find it, but it sounded like ‘Excellent as dogs or dog’) - if anyone knows, tell me). If there is one person out here that knows ‘Excellent at (whatever)’ I’ll marry you.
Game on, sir. :-) But I loved the fact that a man claimed to know and RDA just sidestepped it and went on with his answer. :-)

Edit: Could he have said, "Axel and his Dog"?

http://www.pavekmuseum.org/axel.html


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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by frenchwriter »

Wouahh Anne, Incredible transcription work and so little time!! You are awesome! :o
Thank you very much!!! :D
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by Anne »

Ohh maybe that's what he said! :D I puzzled over that one for quite some time.
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Re: LFCC 2015 RDA Talk Transcript

Post by nicolemj@otenet.gr »

Thank you very much Anne for posting and sharing with us the transcript. It was really fun reading it, and most of all it gave me the feeling that Rick was actually having a good time and that's all it matters. He seemed and he sounded just great, and by looking at his pictures, he looked totally amazing. Thanks again for your effort. We appreciate it.
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