 
GW: Jonas does definitely have his followers, though. He has his fan base. Tell us about your interaction with those guys and gals.
CN: It's interesting. The most extreme fan base for Jonas was the "O.J.B.s" over in England and Europe, which was the "Order of Jonas's Banana." It's a little phallic. But they would show up at the conventions with capes on that say "O.J.B." on the back in yellow. They constantly gave me gifts of bananas, and things that have to do with bananas, and pictures of me superimposed as a banana.
One time over in England, they brought me a 10-pound bag of sponge banana candy. You know the little spongy bananas? It was like a 10-pound bag. And I'm like, "This is hilarious." So, that's probably on the most extreme side.
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A relatively flat scene in "Descent" was brought to life by the introduction of a banana from craft services. |
GW: Do you even like bananas?
CN: Well, the whole banana thing came from an episode where I'm eating the banana in outer space. The funny thing with that was the scene itself, which was just a scene of me and Teal'c in outer space having a conversation ["Descent"]. I was walking around [thinking], "Dang, how can we make this scene interesting? There's got to be something."
Fortunately, Peter DeLuise was directing that episode, too. I was over by craft services. I'm standing there, walking around, and I see a banana. I'm like, "A banana in outer space. That's it!" In the middle of the conversation he pulls out a banana, he starts eating the banana and at the end of the conversation, he offers it to Teal'c.
I went to Peter DeLuise with the idea and he [said], "Yeah, a banana in outer space. I like it!"
GW: That's right up Peter's alley.
CN: Yeah! So we shot it and it made something interesting out of what otherwise would have been a pretty standard, "two guys talking" scene. I do believe I'm probably the first banana in outer space. I think I might be the first guy to eat a banana in outer space in any film or television show known to man.
GW: There's a distinction! So you did about 26 episodes of the show, some you got to be featured in pretty prominently -- [including] "Descent" and "Prophecy." You contributed the story for "Fallout." Which episode really stands out in your mind, or maybe part of an episode?
CN: It's interesting. One of my favorite episodes is "Nightwalkers," which was more of an X-Files-ish kind of feel. It got the characters off base. You're still in the U.S. There was this real mysterious thing and there was a lot of character development, some interesting scenes. That, to me, was one of my favorite episodes to shoot.
Nemec contributed his writing talents to the story which became the seventh season episode "Fallout." | |
GW: What can you tell us about coming up with the story idea for Jonas's return in "Fallout?"
CN: Brad Wright, Rob Cooper, all those guys, they're really, really cool guys. They said they are always open to storylines. If I ever thought of anything, to come to them and pitch it. I spent a greater part of Season Six doing just that. I'm like, "Yeah Brad, it's me again. I've got another idea for ya!" [Laughter]
GW: "What have I done?"
CN: Yeah, exactly! I probably pitched five possible [storylines]. They were really cool. They helped me. They gave me, like, how their beat sheets, look how their pitches, how you pitch the episode. They were really cool about it. So, I could write them correctly, I could write the pitches correctly.
Then me and Rob Cooper beat around a little bit of one of the stories, which became "Fallout" -- which, initially, my working title was "Deep Core," because the core and all that. I just had a working title. So from that they bought that story from me, which was really cool because writing is like my second greatest passion. So to finally get a story credit and get a little something out there as a writer was a big win for me.
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