"GATEWAY TO A NEW HORIZON"
Richard Dean Anderson is up to his neck in it, and loving every minute
It doesn't rain in northern Vancouver's Demonstration Forest - it pours. And with the deluge comes plenty of mud. Richard Dean Anderson calls it "the office". It's where he films much of his new series Stargate SG-1.
"Pretty sweet, isn't it?" he asks.
"The glamorous aspect of the business is definitely overblown. In places like this you must have a sense of humour."
Anderson says there's no place he would rather be - trudging through the mud and cracking jokes with the crew.
"This is one aspect of the job I actually like," says Anderson, whose MacGyver series won worldwide popularity. "This is more blue-collar than any other part of showbiz. I love hanging out with the crew. I'm real comfortable here."
Anderson has considerable clout in the TV arm of showbusiness. He tends to win more battles than he loses.
Stargate SG-1 is based on the movie Stargate, which starred Kurt Russell as grim-faced air force colonel Jack O-Neill. O'Neill leads a military team from Earth through a time-and-dimension travel portal to a desert planet and battle with a morphing pharaoh.
Anderson says he never wanted to play O'Neill in the way Russell did, despite being pressured to do so.
"When MGM approached me to do this and laid out the whole package before me, I had to make it clear to them for a two-year commitment it would be senseless maintaining (Russell's) level of intensity," he says. "Kurt did a great job in the film, but over two years I couldn't maintain that level of gloom."
"It's too late in my life or career to stop adding a touch of humour to all the dryness around me."
A positive reaction after a test-screening of the TV pilot proved Anderson right. He believes one of his strengths is being aware of his limitations as an actor.".
"I'd be bull****ing myself to think I could fool anybody that I was a great actor. That's what gets people into trouble."
"My abilities allow me to make a fool of myself in front of millions of people, and so far so good."