 
GW: Yes, because he was the first.
JN: Teal'c's tattoo was a three-part procedure, and would take us ... we're talking way before prosthetics became a really big deal. I would put on three different things -- I'd put the middle one on, the second one, and then the third one, and would have to fill it in. And that would take a long time in the mornings.
A jar containing the last two Apophis First Prime tattoos for Season Eight of SG-1. | |
Eventually, thank goodness, we managed to get his make-up down from an hour and ten minutes to about fifteen. [Laughter] I'm not sure what season, about Season Six, we nixed the gold sheen on him, and originally that was a part of his ritual. Teal'c, when he would go into his meditation --
GW: -- his kel'no'rim -- that's right.
JN: Kel'no'rim. We never saw any evidence of the brushes or the gold, mind you. The premise, I believe, came from as he became more of this world he dropped a lot of his ... he still did the kel'no'rim. He dropped a lot of his outer trappings. He stopped wearing his robes. He was wearing SG uniforms.
GW: He became from Earth!
JN: One of them.
GW: That was his home.
JN: That was his. And so, from that perspective, a lot of things changed. His make-up became about a 15-minute ... depending on if we stopped to talk. Christopher and I used to love having great conversations.
GW: You called him an angel before.
JN: He's a wonderful man. I love him. They're all fabulous. How lucky can one person be to have such a great cast to work with?
GW: I know. They could be a real pain, and they're just not.
JN: Do you know what? I've had, in my career, very, very few people that I would say "I don't want to put my hands on them." I can say one person for sure, a long time ago. It was an unknown prima donna. [Laughter]
Anyway, I think that the experience of being with this crew, and this cast, some people would give their right arm. [Laughter]
GW: Who was the most difficult to work with? In terms of like, "We need to get this done." When you were putting the make-up on or touching them back up, who would kid around the most?
JN: Who do you think?
GW: OK, Chris Judge.
JN: No!
GW: Oh, Rick!
JN: Yes! It was like trying to hit a moving target to get him ready! Richard didn't like to sit in the chair for very long. I think the longest Richard sat in the make-up chair was in "Brief Candle" when he aged. We never thought he was going to do that. He got really into it after a while.
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Richard Dean Anderson gets too much sun in SG-1's "Brief Candle." |
The preparation for that -- we had pictures of his father and his grandfather. The designers who designed the make-up took some of those, aspects and some of O'Neill's physiognomy -- that's the right word -- to put it together. He sat still, I think there were three different changes in that.
GW: Yeah, he got old over the course of the episode. It's really nice that you guys -- it wasn't just "make him old." You looked at references and you wanted to make it plausible. That's cool.
JN: No, for sure. Richard used to wear contact lenses way back. He hadn't had to wear them for a long time, but one of the things that I really wanted to make sure is for "Brief Candle," that he had a proper contact lens that looked aging. Because as people age their eyes change and the color changes.
You can have the best make-up in the world, aging make-up, and if the eyes give it away it doesn't work. So in this instance it did really work for him. He probably wouldn't say it out loud but he really enjoyed that aspect -- he never looked like that because he's so gorgeous!
GW: He talked about that episode today!
JN: Did he?
GW: He brought that one up specifically. And you had to age everyone in "Unending." Was that a challenge?
JN: It was another wonderful experience. Todd Masters is our prosthetics designer.
GW: Genius.
JN: He is [an] Emmy winner and just a wonderful, wonderful man. He took pictures and did them digitally, and we went through a whole process with the directors and producers as to what stages we would do.
GW: Yeah, it was several years at different increments.
JN: Absolutely. I think three for Amanda. Rachel Griffin and I did Amanda's make-up. Each person had their own make-up artist, plus their own prosthetic make-up artist, to make it work. To maintain it throughout the whole of the experience of videoing it. Because it was HD it's very critical, very, very critical.
" We will really miss Don here in Vancouver, right through the film industry, because he worked everywhere."
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I've only seen it once. It's one of those things that I should go back and look at again. We can become very critical of our work when we see it and sometimes you don't want to go back. Yeah, that was a great experience. I think Amanda's make-up was what was the truest, but then she was the only woman. The men, Ben, was terrific. But then Ben in Continuum was fabulous.
GW: Exactly! Another older version of him!
JN: Yeah. That was Todd. Todd did that. I did Ben's straight make-up. The first part of the aging I did with paint, what they call "aging with paint." Then he had the prosthetics and the beards. And then we had to have a photo double for him, so we had to do exactly the same thing. His stand-in was as closest to Ben's stature, so they did it on him.
All in all, looking back, it's been a very joyous time. Very fatiguing at times. We put in a lot of long hours, but it was never one of those experiences where "I don't want to get up and go to work tomorrow."
GW: You're having a good time while you're there! Richard made sure of that!
JN: He certainly did. I used to say to Richard. He wouldn't be upset if I said this. He was like a big kid.
GW: Oh, I think he'd admit that.
JN: Even back on MacGyver days, and this has been written up so I'm not telling tales out of school ... We were shooting in a rock quarry up in [the Greater Vancouver Regional District], and he was riding a bike. Something got into him, and I'm pretty sure it's the first or the second episode in. He got to the top of the clip and just let the bike go.
GW: He let the bike go?
JN: I said, "Only a nine year old would do that!" He was very gleeful. "Oh, look!" [Laughter]
GW: He got off the bike and just let it continue?
JN: Yeah! Yeah! he didn't hurt himself, he just let it go off the cliff! [Laughter] That's when I say, he's a big kid. I haven't seen Richard in probably a year.
GW: He's here.
JN: I know. I probably won't get to see him. He's being crowded by so many people. I actually saw him signing pictures. Jay took me into the room.
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Jan reveals her influence for involving Don S. Davis as Dana Elcar's stunt double on MacGyver. |
GW: It's been almost a couple of months. Don Davis recently past away.
JN: Sadly.
GW: Yeah. His final appearance was in Continuum. Did you work with him on that film?
JN: I certainly did. I loved Don. I worked with Don for a long time.
GW: He was Dana Elcar's stunt double.
JN: He was. And I had something to do with that.
GW: Really?
JN: I take pride, because Don was balding like Dana. It was a little selfish of me because I really didn't want to have to put a bald cap on a stunt man. The producers and I, and Don, of course, agreed, and [he was] happy to be doing that. From then on we became really good friends. He was such a treasure in my life.
One of the things I would miss about Don is he would walk into the trailer in the morning. He would come up and he'd give everybody a little peck on the cheek. He'd say "Hi, hon," in his lovely accent.
GW: Southern, yeah.
JN: I miss that. That was so Don. And I said to Ruby, "That's one of the things I will certainly miss." But just his personality. I'm very lucky, very fortunate, to have one of Don's paintings signed by Don with a lovely note on the bottom to me. And that's a huge treasure I have. Every time I see it I will always think of Don. There's a Web site coming up where we can actually get prints of his work. [I'll] put my dibs in there for something. [Laughter]
GW: You want some of it!
JN: We will really miss Don here in Vancouver, right through the film industry, because he worked everywhere. Wonderful character actor.
Miss you, Don.
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