Stargate Universe had finally started to grow on me when it got cancelled. Particularly Eli — the wiz-kid who joined the ship after solving a problem in an online game (yeah I loved The Last Starfighter too). In Sydney over the weekend, David Blue explained how his Xbox saved his audition, and why it’s kind of ironic that his Skyrim Dark Elf looks like Christopher Walken.
“My character’s a level 7 mage. But the game is so beautiful that I literally spent two hours hunting deers like the damn Deer Hunter.”
The actor is known for being a big 360 fan (especially games like Bad Company 2 and Fallout 3), and to hear him tell the tale, his Xbox also helped nail his Stargate audition. The producers specifically requested he bring his headset and console to use as props, but the screen test itself just went OK. Turns out that his nervous fumbling around while setting things up — and cracking jokes to ease the tension — helped score the part.
Blue says he was definitely the sci-fi nerd growing up: complete with sys-oping a BBS called NCC-1701 and attending Space Camp.
“We’re all dorks here, right? OK, so yeah, there were a few times that I would walk up to the Stargate prop when no one was around, walk through, hold my breath and hope…”
White Room: 02B3 — Crazy 360 Degree, 2K Resolution Cameras
Blue said he’s currently scripting various potential projects, including one with David Hewlett (aka Stargate’s Rodney McKay). He also mentioned his work on the upcoming movie White Room: 02B3, produced by Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr, the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. White Room will be a 360 degree movie – shot with nine 2K resolution cameras specifically made to produce high-quality images without gaps or distortions. Yep, that sounds freakin’ awesome.
Blue also revealed that two more Stargate movies had been planned at one stage (one combining Atlantis and SG1) and one for SGU, but they’ve fallen through for the moment. After Arctic Blast, I can see why. On that, Michael Shanks (Stargate’s Daniel Jackson) was also at the weekend’s Date With Destiny event. Shanks mentioned he definitely wasn’t happy with that feature’s production values, and says “what could have been quite interesting unfortunately fizzled out.”
Since Stargate, you might have seen Shanks pop up on shows like Burn Notice, Supernatural or Smallville. He played D.C Comic’s Hawkman in the latter, and joked about feature-film possibilities — but I’m thinking he’d face tough competition from Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers movie.
Anyway, I had fun geeking out at the event – thanks to Sandra from Culture Shock events for inviting me along. They’ve got Star Trek hottie, Jeri Ryan, coming out for OzTrek 8 in June.