Judge faces fears in Ark of Truth

The first DVD feature for the Stargate franchise, The Ark of Truth, pushes many limits on what has been shown on screen before. One of the most stunning scenes in the movie features Teal’c journeying across snowy mountains. GateWorld caught up with Christopher Judge to discuss that very sequence, as well as the rest of the film.

“It was terrifying,” he said. “When I read it I thought ‘Oh, it’ll be cool. I’ll be in the green screen. They’re going to have some beautiful mountains behind me.’ Coop goes to my trailer and he’s like ‘How do you feel about heights?'”

Judge admits that his list of phobias is a bit longer than normal. “I was like, ‘Well, Coop, I don’t know. What are you talking about?’ ‘How would you feel about taking a helicopter up to the Sisters Mountains, filming up there and doing all this stuff practical?’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, so do you want me alone in nature?'”

Judge was lucky to have avoided at least one intimate moment with the helicopter. In heavy gusts, the light machines can be unpredictable at close range. “They were quite close to me,” Judge told GateWorld. “A gust came and, which probably was the safe thing for me, it blew me off the course I was on — but it also blew the helicopter into me. I didn’t almost get hit by the blade, but by the runner underneath. Fortunately I got blown too, so it didn’t hit me.”

Was all the effort worth it? Fans will have to decide for themselves this week. “What I said to Coop was ‘No one’s going to believe that this is not CGI’d. It’s so beautiful that no one’s going to believe someone didn’t draw it!'”

Despite the fact that a feature gets a longer shooting time, Judge was still gawking at the schedule. “When I read the script, and then I saw the shooting schedule, I think it was a 15-day or 16-day main unit shoot. I was like, ‘Are you guys out of your mind? There’s no way we can do this in this amount of time.’ And somehow we got it done. It was really amazing.”

The complete interview with Chris Judge will be arriving on GateWorld later this week! Stargate: The Ark of Truth arrives in stores this Tuesday, March 11, in the United States. Pre-order your copy at Amazon.com!