GateWorld grills Joe Flanigan

For those who purchased Season One of Stargate Atlantis on DVD, you’ve probably been able to watch most — if not all — of the discs by now. To bookend this triumph, GateWorld presents the second half of our questionnaire with Joe Flanigan, Atlantis’s Colonel John Sheppard.

In this chat, Joe discusses (at length) his feelings for “Epiphany”, an episode he helped pen, being a star, his children, and trying to fit as much improv into his scenes as possible.

See Part One of our Q&A with Joe here!

How did Epiphany turn out when compared to your original expectations?
“It went through so many transformations. Originally I had an idea to do something along the lines of a cross between the ‘Bob Hope / Bing Crosby Road Show’ and ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ where McKay and I find ourselves on a different planet being bequeathed all these royal powers, and kind of living up the excess and having a good time being drunk with our own power, not wanting to go back.

“Of course they’ve done everything on SG-1, so you’re met by the usual answer, which is ‘We’ve done that on SG-1.’ And they have! They’ve done a million stories on SG-1. We tweaked and bent it and finally got transformed so much it was unrecognizable, originally. The idea they enjoyed was crossing into some time dilation dimension, being stuck on this other side where time is going by at an entirely different rate while the team is trying to rescue me, and their time rate is going by much slower. So by the time they get [to] me I’m significantly — well, I’m not significantly older, but I think about six months have gone by.

“The Magnificent Seven. It was a little like that where I run into these so-called villagers who are frightened of this particular foe that’s out there, and I find myself reluctantly being their sheriff. I originally envisioned these pterodactyl-like monsters, not unlike “Van Helsing” or something like that where there’s millions of these pterodactyl-like monsters coming down, attacking us. That ended up being one transparent monster. So the whole thing was different. I mean, I had an entirely different vision.

“For budgetary reasons, though, there’s only so much you can do. So we did what we could and it was very weird because we were shooting this — in order to green screen the monster he had to be in a pink outfit. He looked like a giant pepto-bismol kind of monster. So, to go from my “Van Helsing” nightmare to looking at a pepto-bismol monster … There was a big disparity there between my vision and the reality of what we were doing. “

Is Epiphany more of a bottle episode or is Sheppard’s personality changed a little bit throughout the rest of the season?
“Once again, Brad [Wright] and Robert [Cooper, Executive Producers] preferred the bottle episode. And for very important reasons. Our show is put in syndication. It runs all over the world at different times of the day. In fact, most viewers probably will not see our show sequentially. So it’s good for them not to serialize the show. I think that’s probably smart, although as much as I like doing the two-parters, I think my favorite this year was “Instinct” and “Conversion”. They stand on their own but they’re really linked. If you can do that, and it’s very hard to accomplish that — to have a show stand on its own and be linked to the next one — it’s great. But most of them are sewn up in the end, and I’d say ‘Epiphany’ falls under that category. “

The last scene of the entire first season has Sheppard flying off on a suicide mission. Was this unnerving? Did The Powers That Be leave you sweating on whether or not you would be back for Season Two, or did you know?
“Well I never questioned it. God. I would be surprised if they weren’t expecting me to come back. I think everybody naturally hedges themselves into a position where, in the event somebody doesn’t come back, they’ve got enough of an ambiguous storyline to go both directions. That issue never came up. I think we were always expecting to come back. “

Do you let your two young children watch Atlantis?
“They watch certain things and for some reason they would occasionally come to work and they became obsessed — my little one — completely obsessed with Stargate Atlantis. He thinks that Jason [Momoa] and I actually leave for work, we go fly through space and kill bad guys and come back home in time for dinner. I prefer to be with them when they’re watching it because, remember, they also think that I’m going through the process. Sometimes they can’t distinguish when I’m actually being hurt, and whether it’s make-believe.

“I think that when they reach the ages of six to seven, they’re probably safe to watch … but right now I tend to be with them if they’re going to watch it. And then again, I personally don’t really like to watch it ’cause I’ve watched it for so many times. My little one can barely pronounce Stargate Atlantis. “Tawgate Atlantes?” I try to persuade him to watch something else but he may go to the mat with me on it. So I find myself occasionally sitting there. And of course just watching and completely engrossed in the storyline, I’m looking at entirely different issues … “Why are we at that side of the frame?” The inner critic comes out. “

During “Rising” you fell down a hill and they decided to keep it in the scene. What else have you done by mistake that the editors decided to keep in?
“Oh, God. Quite a bit. They’re good that way. I couldn’t even name one, there’s so many times. It happens on a daily basis. We throw stuff out there and it either works or it doesn’t work. Hopefully they just pick and choose and decide what they want. We’re trying to inject as many moments as possible. “

How do you deal with the recognition of being on a hit show? You’re a very modest man, and we get the sense that you don’t necessarily enjoy being put up on a pedestal.
“Well remember, I spend 90% of my time being knocked off that pedestal. So I’m much more comfortable not being on it. I would say it’s just a very small portion of my daily experience with people who watch the show and love the show. I’ve been doing this for quite a while so it’s very hard for me to go into that persona. To me, I go to work, and then when I come home I turn it off. I’ve never been able to carry a character home. I don’t think I would be married if I did that.

When I first started on the show — as my first experience in science fiction — everybody kept saying, ‘Well, are you ready for the fans? They’re very passionate. This is going to be new for you — i.e. watch out.’ I’ve got to say. I haven’t found it that way. Yeah, they’re passionate, but they’re people who enjoy the show. I haven’t met too many delusional people. I’ve met people who like the show and are perfectly normal. I’ve had nothing but really pleasant experiences. “

If you don’t have your copy of Stargate Atlantis Season One on DVD, please consider ordering it through Amazon.com. Your purchase helps to support GateWorld!

(Thanks knocknashee and aaobuttons for two of these questions! A big thanks to everyone who contributed!)