STARGATE ATLANTIS - SCIFI AND TV TALK: David Hewlett Checks In
by Steve Eramo
06/16/2011
It has been a little over two years since Stargate Atlantis’ Dr. Rodney McKay last traded good-natured barbs with his friends and colleagues as well as acerbic quips with various alien bad guys as he helped protect the Pegasus Galaxy along with Earth’s own galaxy from some of the deadliest of extraterrestrial threats. For multi-talented David Hewlett, who played Atlantis’ egotistical genius and occasionally affable scientist, it has been a time of delving into several new creative ventures on the big as well as small screens. One of these gigs is the role of Hunsiker in the upcoming hush-hush feature film Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
“One of the most fascinating things for me about working on this film was the number of non-disclosure agreements that you had to sign. You had to basically sign one every time you were given a call sheet,” jokes Hewlett. “As for the job itself, it was absolutely fascinating, especially for a nerd like me. It wasn’t a big part, but I just wanted to go in for it. After all, this was Planet of the Apes.
“When I auditioned I knew nothing about the film because they wouldn’t tell you anything about it. Even the characters’ names were changed, so in the movie you didn’t even end up with the same name that you had in the audition. I hope I won’t get into trouble for divulging this, but in my audition it referred to an animal. For example, in the script it read, ‘The animal approached.’ So the director [Rupert Wyatt] said to me, ‘When the monke….um, the animal approaches.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, you said, monke… It’s a monkey, right? Is it a monkey?’
... As is always the case with Hewlett, he has a number of other irons in the fire along with his wife, producer Jane Loughman, including the much talked about Starcrossed web series. “We’re actively pursuing Starcrossed,” enthuses the actor. “I’m working on a feature length version of it, and, in fact, have finished a first synopsis or beat-by-beat of what happens as a feature film. So I got to write a backdoor pilot, basically.
“We were approached again by Syfy about a Starcrossed web series, and what they’re saying, which I think is a smart thing, is that, look, we get a lot of shows pitched to us about unemployed Sci-Fi actors, What they like about Starcrossed is that it’s not about the actors, it’s about the show, and the making of a Sci-Fi show, so we had to figure out how to make that financially viable on the web..."
Rise of the Planet of the Apes premieres in theaters on August 5, 2011. Cast includes James Franco, Tom Felton, Brian Cox, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Tyler Labine, David Hewlett, Leah Gibson and Chelah Horsdal.
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