Stargate Atlantis' Dr. Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion).
Once again, I have decided to open up the interview vault and revisit some of the many interviews I have had the pleasure of writing over the years and that just appeared in-print and not on-line. In today's interview, the talented and congenial Paul McGillion talks all things Stargate Atlantis and playing Dr. Carson Beckett on the popular Sci-Fi TV series. Enjoy, and keep coming back for more familiar faces and shows!
Stargate Atlantis viewers were saddened when, at the end of the third season episode Sunday, a coffin draped with a Scottish flag and containing the body of Dr. Carson Beckett was carried through the Atlantis Stargate and back to Earth. The physician risked his life to save a patient and died doing so. As we all know, though, in Sci-Fi no one ever really dies. Following a campaign organized by Beckett fans, the show’s producers reexamined the popularity of the character and the actor who played him, Paul McGillion. As a result, our favorite Scot was subsequently brought back in the two-part season four story The Kindred.
“Working on The Kindred was very much like a homecoming,” recalls McGillion. “It was a wonderful opportunity for me and a terrific script written by [producer] Alan McCullough. Prior to this, he hadn’t really written many scenes with Beckett, so I was impressed with the strong sense of my character that he had, which I felt was readily apparent in this script when I read it. Carson has a surprise reveal at the end of part one and then plenty to do in the second half.
“When Beckett was killed in Sunday it was, I think, a real shock for people, and so abrupt, too. The Kindred, however, allowed my character to say goodbye at the end of the episode when he goes into a stasis pod. This time around I knew I might not be coming back again, so it was a chance for me to pay respect to everyone around me, the cast and the crew, along with the fans, especially the Save Carson Beckett campaigners for everything they did. I was just thrilled to be able to come back and reprise my role.”
Carson Beckett’s clone was created by the human/Wraith hybrid Michael (Connor Trinneer) from a DNA sample he took while holding the doctor captive in the third season Atlantis episode Misbegotten. The clone remained Michael’s prisoner for a year-and-a-half until being rescued in The Kindred. Sadly, Carson’s life was reliant on an enzyme of Michael’s making, and without it, he had to enter stasis in order to stave off death. Lucky for him, Dr. Jennifer Keller (Jewel Staite) developed a replacement enzyme, and in season five’s The Seed, Beckett was revived from stasis and cured just in time to help save Atlantis from destruction. It was not, however, business as usual for our hero, at least at first.
“The initial reaction of the other characters was not to trust Beckett at times,” says McGillion. “For Carson, I think the emotional realization that he was actually a clone was overwhelmingly shocking, especially in The Kindred. On top of that, Dr. Weir [Torri Higginson] was gone as well. The combination of everything made him feel somewhat ostracized and different, and I played that a little bit in my performance. There was also a sense of loneliness for my character because his family doesn’t even know what has happened to him.
“So he was back and, yes, he was a clone, but as the season went on it became a non-issue. I spoke with Joe Mallozzi [executive producer] about this and we agreed that Carson was basically the same guy, it just so that happens that he’s a clone, an identical one, and I think that was just a [plot] device to reintroduce him and then we moved on from there. It was like the old Carson was back and the trust factor was restored fairly quickly as well. There’s a neat scene [in The Seed] between my character and Richard Woolsey [Robert Picardo] where he has to trust this clone, and he’s not totally sure about that because of the influence that Michael might have had on him. So Carson had to gain that trust with the new leader of Atlantis, and I found that to be an interesting aspect to the return of my character.”
Having spent some time recuperating on Atlantis, Carson Beckett is preparing to return to Earth to be checked out by medical authorities there when in Whispers he is recruited by Colonel Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) to assist him on an off-world mission. The two gate to a planet where an all-female SG team has discovered one of Michael’s abandoned research facilities that remains home to some of his more dangerous creations.
“This was a fun episode to shoot,” says McGillion. “Technically speaking we had the fog issue [due to Michael’s creatures], which was a bit of a problem for the camera guys. However, the production team came up with quite a clever way to resolve things by using plastic sheets to block off sections of the set and contain the fog within those sheets.
“Obviously this was a heavy story for Joe Flanigan and myself as well as all the gals we had the chance to work with – Nicole de Boer [Dr. Alison Porter], Christina Cox [Major Anne Teldy], Janina Gavankar [Sergeant Dusty Mehra] and Leela Savasta, [Captain Alicia Vega],” continues the actor. “They were all a joy to have on-set and they did a terrific job. It was especially nice for me having Nicole de Boer to work off of. She’s a great actress not to mention a real sweetheart, and we had a little spark going on between our two characters. It’s too bad we never got to develop that further.
“At one point in Whispers, Beckett is running through the fog and director Will Waring wanted to get a feeling of movement happening. However, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. They resolved that by putting me on a treadmill, so I was running on that while looking back and forth behind me. Because of the fog, though, I couldn’t see my feet either, so I was waiting to fall on my face,” he chuckles.
“Another scene they executed in a really innovative fashion is where this creature that’s chasing my character ends up right above Carson and breathing in his ear. They reverse-angle shot that in order to make it appear bug-like where this thing was on top of me, but, in fact, I was lying on my back with my legs up in the air. So thanks to some camera trickery, they ended up with a visually interesting shot.”
One of the more popular onscreen friendships established in the first season of Atlantis was between Beckett and Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett). Many of their scenes together were humorous in nature, including in year two’s Duet, when McKay, whose body is forced to share the consciousness of Lt. Laura Cadman (Jaime Ray Newman), plants a big kiss on Beckett’s lips. Having lost this good-natured buddy-buddy rapport when the doctor was killed off, it was revisited in year five’s Outsiders, when Carson and McKay are trapped on a Wraith hive ship.
“That episode was just a blast to do because it had a lot of Beckett and McKay interaction,” notes McGillion. “There’s an hysterical scene where they’re both trying to squeeze into the cockpit of a Wraith dart. Believe me, there wasn’t too much acting going on there. David and I had a real laugh filming that.
“For Carson as a character, there’s a moment where he’s dealing with the Wraith commander [Aaron Craven] and willing to give up his life in order to save others. I think that sort of epitomizes Carson as a person. In this case, as the Wraith is feeding on him, he’s hoping it will work out in his favor, which it did. At the same time, however, there was a chance that the Wraith would have sucked the life out of him before the enzyme he injected himself with kicked in. Although Carson can sometimes be a bit of a cowardly lion, at the end of the day he’s for the betterment of those around him, even if means sacrificing his own life.”
In McGillion’s penultimate Atlantis appearance, Identity, his alter ego has to help deal with a case of who’s who when Dr. Keller’s body is taken over by the alien consciousness of a cunning thief, Neeva Carsol (Dawn Olivieri). Meanwhile, Keller faces an off-world death sentence when she is mistaken for Neeva. “That was another chance for me to hang out with the cast,” says the actor. “We went on-location quite a bit, which is always enjoyable, and I had a number of scenes with Joe Flanigan and Jason Momoa [Ronon Dex].”
The actor returned to Bridge Studios and the Atlantis set one last time back in September 2008 to film the season five/series finale Enemy at the Gate, in which our heroes must save Earth against invasion by a rogue Wraith captain and his advanced hive ship. “I was so happy to be a part of that story,” enthuses McGillion. “Carson didn’t have a major role to play in it, but his contribution was significant because, after Colonel Sheppard, my character has the highest level of the Ancients technology gene in his body, so he ended up flying Atlantis back to Earth. That was pretty cool and I’m delighted that I got to do that.
“I feel Beckett became an important part of the [Atlantis] team and I was really thankful for that. It was terrific to be part of the finale, including the closing scene with all of us on the city balcony, which was somewhat bittersweet. During season five, Beckett never wore his Scottish patch because he was more or less a ‘visitor’ to the city. However, for this episode I called Joe Mallozzi and said to him, ‘I think Beckett has earned his way back on the team, if you will, so for that final scene can you ask the wardrobe department to put Carson’s Scottish flag back on his jacket?’ And Joe said, ‘Absolutely.’ More than anything I wanted to pay homage to all those fans who were so loyal to Beckett and myself during his downtime so to speak.”
McGillion fans can next look forward to seeing him on the big screen in Star Trek XI as well as the small screen with a guest-spot on 24. “I can’t wait to see the Star Trek movie,” says the actor. “Unfortunately, I can’t reveal too much about my character, except that I have a scene with Captain Kirk [Chris Pine]. I can also tell you that J.J. Abrams [producer/director] is a very classy, down-to-earth guy and terrific to work for. I mean, there was that whole thing with me possibly playing Scotty and things not working out, but at the same time J.J. offered me another role, so it was great to still be involved in this movie.
“As for 24 I can’t say too much about that either,” he laughs. “I’m in the second to last episode of this [seventh] season and my character [Levinson] is definitely not the nicest person in the world. All of my scenes were with Kiefer Sutherland [Jack Bauer] and Carlos Bernard [Tony Almeida] and I enjoyed getting to work on such a successful series.”
When an actor begins a new job, he or she is never sure how long it will last or what his character’s journey will truly be. McGillion experienced that when he first stepped into the shoes of Atlantis’ Dr. Carson Beckett, which started out as a recurring role but evolved into something so much more.
“Carson started out as a bit of the comic relief,“ muses the actor, “but I think when I did the first season episode Poisoning the Well, which was written by Damian Kindler, it allowed the producers to see what my character was capable of. It helped solidify Beckett as an integral member of the team and showed that he had some emotional depth, too.
“From there, I got to play the comedic scenes as well as the dramatic ones, and throughout all the episodes I did, my character dealt with a variety of moral issues, most of which you don’t normally get to deal with as an actor. So it was a rich and compelling journey for my character with plenty of ups and downs and one that I’ll never forget.”
Steve Eramo
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