Talk to Nathan, "Get in the Gate" Contest Winner

[Hatusu]

Hello all! Recently, I ran across Nathan Flaminio, last year's winner of the "Get in the Gate" Sweepstakes. Nathan won a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia to film walk-on roles in "Stargate SG1" (season 8) and "Stargate Atlantis" (season 1).

I asked Nathan if I could interview him on the Forum. Actually, in this thread we can all ask him questions. I'll start. Nathan comes on the Forum about once each day, so it may be a while before he answers your questions.


For those of you interested in entering this year's contest, starting July 15th you can enter at this page:
http://www.scifi.com/getinthegate/

[Hatusu]

Hi Nathan. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I want all the tiny details. So, let's start at the beginning.There were over 700,000 entries for last year's contest. Why did you enter? How did you find out that you won?

Did they tell you what episodes you would be in? What were they? Who contacted you before you flew out? What did they tell you before you got to Vancouver?

[Hatusu]

Nathan,
As the winner, you can bring a friend with you. Please tell us about Greg. Did you have any problems at the airport? Getting your work permit? Who met you? Where did you stay? How many days did you stay?

Did they take you to the set right away? What happened? Who took you around? Who did you get to meet?

[Hatusu]

Nathan,
Tell us about your acting experiences. What time did you have to report? Did they send a car? Did you meet any other actors waiting to be picked up from the hotel?

What happened once you got to the set? Which one was first, SG1 or Atlantis? Please describe each one.

[Hatusu]

Pye wants to know if you got your gift basket from the Sci Fi channel? I want to know if you got autographed photos.

[N8ball88]

Hi Nathan. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I want all the tiny details. So, let's start at the beginning.There were over 700,000 entries for last year's contest. Why did you enter? How did you find out that you won?

Did they tell you what episodes you would be in? What were they? Who contacted you before you flew out? What did they tell you before you got to Vancouver?

No problem. I'll do my best to answer everything.

I entered the contest online at SciFi's website because I have been watching and been a fan of Stargate since the movie came out. I was among the first to see the original series because I worked as a manager at a video store and had the opportunity to watch "Children of the Gods" about two weeks before it was actually released.

I was contacted by a company called Ventura Associates by phone. So if anyone gets a call from them, you are most likely the winner. I hope they don't get mad at me for saying that...

I did not know the name of the episodes before I got to Vancouver, though they did tell me they might need to shave my head when I got there. I told them they could paint me green and call me Slappy if they wanted to.

The episodes I was in were "Moebius" pt 2 and "Siege" pt 2. I also was asked to do an interview for "The Lowdown" which was very cool!

All they really wanted before I left was info about Greg and myself, and a head shot of me.

[TechnoWraith]

Where in Siege part 2 were you?

I just saw that episode a half hour ago on the Scifi Atlantis marathon.

[N8ball88]

Nathan,
As the winner, you can bring a friend with you. Please tell us about Greg. Did you have any problems at the airport? Getting your work permit? Who met you? Where did you stay? How many days did you stay?

Did they take you to the set right away? What happened? Who took you around? Who did you get to meet?

Hmmm...interesting questions you ask. Have you read something somewhere else about this?

Greg has been a friend of mine for about fifteen years nows. I was originally going to bring my roommate Johnny, but he couldn't get off work. Greg was the next logical choice. We have watched all of the episodes of Staragte together, plus the movie and the played the Nintendo(Super Nintendo, I think) game. We are both huge fans of both Stargate shows.

Oh...the airport. I'm not sure I should say anything about that...lol. Somehow we managed to end up on two different flights. He got to Vancouver before me, which we both thought was odd. Once we got there, we could not find our driver or where to get the work permit. Everyone we asked said they didn't give those out there. (Though that's were I was told to get it from) I couldn't tell you the name of the guy that picked us up or drove us back and forth off-hand, as I do not have my scripts here right now. (I'm in the process of moving)

We stayed at the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver. A very upscale hotel where Dan Castellaneta was also staying. (I got to meet him down by the bar, briefly. )

We were there for four days. I believe we arrived about noon on Wednesday and left about noon on Saturday. Neither one of us wanted to leave, and were hoping we could get any kind of job working with them, so that we wouldn't have to go.

The driver asked us if we'd rather go to the hotel or go take a tour of the studio. Guess which one we picked...

When we got to the studio, we were shown around by Gina Green, who was one of the Promotion Coordinators, and a very nice young lady. The first day we met a lot of the behind the scenes people., and got to watch them film "Citizen Joe." Several of the higher up people (Directors and such) were big Green Bay Packer fans, which worked out to our advantage. The first AD gave me Dan Castellaneta's script which was very cool!

[Agent_Dark]

Haha, you're not the 'I think Samantha Carter is very hot' guy from the Behind the Scenes Lowdown are ya?

Because that statement couldn't be truer

[N8ball88]

Where in Siege part 2 were you?

I just saw that episode a half hour ago on the Scifi Atlantis marathon.

I was in about the first five minutes. First I was standing behind Ford's head in the backround talking to a guard, the I was on the balcony with both Davids.

I have to go for the night, but I will return tomorrow to answer more questions.

[N8ball88]

Haha, you're not the 'I think Samantha Carter is very hot' guy from the Behind the Scenes Lowdown are ya?

Because that statement couldn't be truer

Ok, I have to answer this one before I go...

Yes that was me! There was more to go along with that, but they cut most of the interview.

[Hatusu]

Hmmm...interesting questions you ask. Have you read something somewhere else about this?

Hmmm...Nope.
Thanks , Nathan. Good night.

[Osiris-RA]

Is it hard to learn lines for TV? I'm not exactly sure how much actual lines you did : or so - but in any case, are they hard to learn? Do vocal chords tend to freeze up when the director yells action, or does one just hide behind someone used to it and peek out momentarily just to let the audience know you're there or do they come natural .. what?

[Seastallion]

I have just one thing to say... You are a VERY lucky man, Nathan. I kinda envy you...

One, 2 part question: Which stargate actors did you get to meet while you where there, and what was said? (If you don't mind telling us that is... )

[N8ball88]

Nathan,
Tell us about your acting experiences. What time did you have to report? Did they send a car? Did you meet any other actors waiting to be picked up from the hotel?



What happened once you got to the set? Which one was first, SG1 or Atlantis? Please describe each one.

Acting experiences...I did a couple plays and musicals when I was younger, that's about it. I've been on t.v. several times for different things (D.A.R.E. among others). There was a reporter here that used to love interviewing me when I was really young, and I had a big crush on her, so it worked out very nicely.


What time? Early. lol I think the first day was 8 am, which wasn't so bad. The second day was 6 am, very hard on a third shift person. It was a lot of fun though.

They did send a car(minivan) for us, and the drivers were very nice. We talked about all kinds of different things on the way out there. Sports, acting, actors, different shows being filmed there, what life is like in Vancouver compaired to Wausau, and many other things.

There were no other actors going with us from the hotel. That would have been pretty cool though.

The first day of filming we went to the "desert" location in Burnaby. We spent the first hour or so looking around and meeting people. Amanda had left for the day, but came back to meet us which was awesome! We talked to her for probably ten minutes, and she gave me a hug and a kiss! Then it was off to make-up to try and make me look Egyptian. They darkened me quite a few shades, but I was still much lighter than everyone else. Then Christina McQuarrie helped get me into the costume that would prove to be my downfall, literally. She was really cool, and we talked about Don S. Davis, Teryl Rothery(who was her favorite), Jay Acovone (I saw his military costume and that's how I found out he was going to be in the episode.) She showed me pictures of the cast and crew's kids, trips to different places, costumes, and other things. All very cool. Very nice lady. Walking to the set to do my scene we ran into Rick. We talked to him for a couple minutes, and he said he would wait for us to finish filming so we could talk to him some more. We both thought that was a really nice thing for him to do. We got to where they were filming and ran into Michael Greenburg again. He let me sit in his directors chair and watch the action on his screens until the time came for my scene. Peter Deluise was joking around with everybody (I can't tell you the jokes on here) He told me what he wanted me to do. I thought everything was going fine, but some knucklehead kept looking at the camera and laughing. I don't know who it was (me), but they were really causing a lot of reshoots. Peter kept saying things like, "Ok. That scene was good except for one of you was laughing that time, and I'm not going to say who, but you know who you are. Remember, you're really pissed off at the evil Jaffa. Remember to scream you heads off!" A couple more takes in I was running up the dune and managed to step on my costume causing it to rip off of my body. I just tossed it behind me and kept going. Everyone got a nice big laugh out of that. When we finally finished the scene (about 15 takes) I headed back to meet up with Rick again. Greg had him autograph a roll of duct tape, which he signed as both himself and Macgyver. We then got rushed to the make-up trailer to take everything back off. While I was getting my make-up removed, Chris Judge walked in to get his put on. I was a little stunned at first at his size and the fact that he didn't stop smiling the whole time. We talked to him about the different acting jobs he's had, like when he was on MacGyver and his voice over work for video games and cartoons. When they finally got his make-up on he let me get a picture with him. Then they rushed us off to go back to the hotel. (I mentioned some things like, "We'd really much rather stay here and keep watching the action than go back." to a couple of the crew members, and it worked just like I planned. About half way back to the hotel the driver got a call telling him to turn around and bring us back to the set. I just love it when a plan comes together. Oh wait, wrong show. We got back and watched everything, trying to burn it all into our memories. We met Dan Shea and talked to him for quite a while. He offered to give us a ride back to the hotel at the end of the day so we could hang out there longer. We kicked hack for a bit while we were there, which some of the crew really liked watching. Towards the end of the day Michael finally came out to film his scene. When he was done I met him and shook his hand. He had to go do something, so it was only a brief meeting. Then they tried sending us back to the hotel again, but Peter came over to talk to us, so that bought us some more time. I can't remember what he asked me about the show, but I answered his question correctly and he gave me a two dollar coin. I thought that was a little weird, but I guess he does that from time to time. We both got a picture taken with him, and that was the end of my SG-1 day.

I hope I didn't miss anything there, but if I have I'll come back and fill in those parts.

I'm going to get to some of the other questions before I get to Atlantis. That last bit took a while. lol