 
Whenever there was a corrupt government body that needed wringing or an impostor posing as a member of Stargate Command, one honest soul from within the NID could always be phoned to help set the record straight: Malcolm Barrett. Actor Peter Flemming played this agent of accountability from Season Five to Ten of Stargate SG-1, along with two episodes of Stargate Atlantis. GateWorld is proud to publish our first interview with the actor who helped set the corrupt NID straight. Peter talks about the casting for the part in Season Five's "Wormhole X-Treme!", nearly shying away from the role, Barrett's relationship with Samantha Carter, and much more! GateWorld's video interview with Peter runs approximately 23 minutes, and requires QuickTime 7.0 or higher. The interview is also available at GateWorld Play! |
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GateWorld: For GateWorld.net, I'm David Read, and I'm interviewing Peter Flemming -- with a little bit of music to help us out here. Peter, thank you for coming to join us. Where are we? In the Transcontinental, down in Gastown in Vancouver?
Peter Flemmng: We're at the last stop of the train station in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.
GW: Were you born here?
PF: No.
GW: Where are you from originally?
PF: Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the east coast of Canada.
GW: OK. Did you do any acting in Toronto?
PF: Not in Toronto. I mean I have, after I came out to Vancouver. I went from Halifax to Vancouver about 15 years ago. I started my career out here.
GW: So how did you find your way out here?
PF: Just process of elimination. I did a bunch of different things in Halifax and never really settled into anything. I was watching TV one day and I saw a few actors and I thought that maybe I could do that. But I needed to be far enough away from home.
GW: So how old were you when you got this bug?
Agent Malcolm Barrett enters the fray in Season Five's "Wormhole X-Treme!" | |
PF: Early 20's? Around 20. I had done some commercials and some small TV parts in Halifax while I was going to University. So I was kind of just filling the space in the classroom but not really wanting to be there. I did some modeling when I was in my late teens and some commercials. I did enough of it in Halifax that I got the bug enough where I needed to leave. And I needed to go far away enough that I would be far enough away from home that I wouldn't come back. Vancouver is across the country from the east coast. I went to the west coast.
GW: So you can't exactly slide back into town ...
PF: Well, I ended up doing that. And that's just a long slide.
GW: What were you originally going to school for? What would have become of Peter Flemming had he not got the acting bug?
PF: In the beginning I wanted to be a gym teacher, and that didn't turn out. I've done a lot of sports. My whole upbringing was sports. I competed nationally in a few different sports.
GW: Such as?
PF: Curling and golf, baseball ... But I played all sports at a pretty good level. So that was my life growing up, it was sports.
GW: Any hockey?
PF: Played a lot of hockey, a lot of hockey.
GW: Hockey and curling.
PF: And when you asked me the question, I was like, "I'm missing a few sports, I can't think of them." But hockey and curling were big. My brother [Paul] is actually a really big curler. His team is ranked, I think, sixth in the world.
GW: Wow! He's playing!
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Peter's brother, professional curling player Paul Flemming (right), with teammates Craig Burgess and Shawn Adams. |
PF: Yeah, oh, he's a player. So actually there's been a couple of times where he's been on TV curling, and I've been on TV on one of my TV shows or gigs that I've been doing. It's happened a few times at home where Mom has joked about her sons, where she's flipping back [and forth] with the remote. I tell her now with picture-in-picture if it happens, and when it happens, again she doesn't have to do that.
GW: Sweet. That's great. So were you a fan of science fiction?
PF: No.
GW: Not at all?
PF: I [became one] once I got into the show, but before I started ... I always liked Star Trek and just sort of something that was playing with the dimension that was outside of this world. I always I enjoyed that, but it wasn't my number one choice to go to on the remote. If I flipped around and saw, it'd be "Oh, wow, neat." But I got back to my Three's Company, or Gilligan's Island.
No it wasn't my first hit. But since I got into Stargate, and just watching a few of the Sci fi shows ... And I think as I mature and get a little bit older as well, some of the concepts and the dialogue is intriguing, fascinating ... as you know. So that's made me more engaged in the Sci fi part of the world for sure.
GW: A lot of people say that sports and science fiction are kind of two completely different spheres of interest. They don't usually meet very often.
PF: Yeah, for sure. And I guess maybe the maturing thing -- I'm playing less sports and watching more Sci fi, so there's the transition. Maybe there is a bit of a contrast, a bit of a clash. I don't know. I'm sure there's a lots of people that are very involved in sports that love Sci fi, and vice-versa. Maybe they just never came together at the same time for me. But I enjoy Sci fi now.
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