Monday, March 9, 2009

Stargate Atlantis / SG-1 - SciFi Pulse: Robert Picardo Interview

At SciFi Pulse:

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



Robert Picardo Gives Us A Piece Of His Mind

Written by Ian Cullen on March 9, 2009

Last month I was given the opportunity to do a sit down interview with actor Robert Picardo who, while perhaps best known to genre fans for his role as the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager and Richard Woolsey in Stargate has, a huge number of credits spanning movies, television and theatre. SciFiPulse last spoke with Bob back in 2007, and asked him numerous questions about his approach to acting and who his acting heroes were.

... Another character that Picardo has played is Richard Woolsey, who, over the course of Stargate SG 1 and Atlantis, underwent an incredible transformation. It’s a role Picardo reveals he had doubts about when it came to him becoming a series regular.
“When [producer] Joe Mallozzi called me and asked, ‘how do you feel about taking over the Atlantis expedition?’ I was of two minds, “ he reveals. “I told him, ‘I love working on the show with you guys and the cast – it’s great fun to do it – but with what we’ve set up with the Woolsey character. I don’t quite see how he could step into the leadership position.’

“First of all we’ve gotten certain comic mileage in the past from the fact that Woolsey has very bad people skills.” Picardo expands. “More importantly, he doesn’t seem very brave and is out and out cowardly in some situations.

“The more I thought about it, the more I thought ‘Let’s turn the problem around’, and I began to see how interesting a challenge it is to take someone whose primarily role has been to evaluate the leadership of others. Woolsey knows enough about the rule-book and all that to come in and question other people’s command decisions, and measure what they did versus what protocol stipulates what they should have done. How they may have been reckless, how they may have indeed saved the life of a crewman, but endangered everyone else on the base in so doing. So he was a type that came in and said, ‘Even though it turned out well, you made this mistake. You took this chance. You risked this possible outcome ..’

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