Texas native, Brian J. Smith, made a name for himself on the stage at the acclaimed Quad C Theater program at the Collin County Community College in Plano, TX.  After attending Juliard’s four year drama program in New York, he performed in Broadway’s Come Back Little Sheba, and landed lead roles in the independent features, Hate Crime, The War Boys, and Red Hook.  As a relative unknown to series TV, his most notable performance to date was in an episode of Law & Order, playing a man whose sister had recently died in the war in Iraq, and who may have sought revenge in a dramatic way against those he blamed for her death.

On Stargate Universe, he plays Lt. Matthew Scott, who is suddenly thrust into a leadership position under very bad circumstances.  The depth of that character comes out over the first three hours of the new SyFy series.  While this spinoff is definitely one that will have appeal to both Stargate fans and novices alike, Lt. Matthew Scott is one to watch as the series unfolds, and who will surely become a fan favorite as he meets the challenges on the Destiny in both his military and personal lives.  And Brian J. Smith is an actor who will likely soon become a well known name among series television stars, and one to watch as he continues to grow in his career. 

It is rare to see a relatively new television actor who can focus such emotional depth into so few lines, though his role on Stargate Universe is significant.  And his acting resume on stage is extensive and impressive.  Among an outstanding ensemble cast, which includes the dashing Robert Carlye, the beautiful and gracious Ming-Na, the charming and hilarious at times, David Blue and gorgeous Alania Huffman, with just a tad of the classiness of Lou Diamond Phillips, this is the character to watch.  And Brian J. Smith seems to understand that.

Brian was kind enough to take a few minutes out of his day on the set, and talk to MediaBlvd about the show, his character, and where he thinks it will go.  This call was conducted on September 25^th, 2009, one week to the day before Stargate Universe premieres on SyFY.

MediaBlvd> Thank you for your time today.  We’re really excited about the show. I’ve seen the press kit and the third episode, and your performance just blew me away.  I saw your Law & Order episode recently also.

Brian> Oh, thank you!  Right, Alex Chapple, who directed that Law & Order actually came up and directed an episode of Stargate Universe this year.  It was a really good episode called ‘Life’, and that will be up in the middle of the season.  He really helped me out a lot in that Law & Order episode and I almost owe my performance to him.  I knew that they were looking for that kind of director, a good actor’s director for the show, and I really thought he fit the bill.  So I’m glad he’s able to be here, it’s awesome.

MediaBlvd> So what is this like, you’ve got one week here?  Is the anticipation kind of building?  It’s almost like giving birth I’d guess?

Brian> Yeah, it’s such an odd thing; especially for us because we’re almost done.  We’ve got three more episodes to finish up here, and all of a sudden we’re airing.  We’re very excited and curious to see how people are going to react, since it is such a different kind of show.  But at the end of the day, if it does well, or it doesn’t do well, you just show up at work and go forward.  That’s all you can do, and it is so out of your hands.  It’s so random.  I know that for us though, we’re very, very proud of the show.  A lot of us have seen the pilot and we’re really, really proud of it.  In the end, that’s what matters.  Sometimes you work on a show for years and years and think its crap.  But we got really lucky.  We all got involved in a show that we love and we care a lot about.  You can’t really ask for more than that.

MediaBlvd> I know there was going to be a big screen screening for the cast and crew.  Have you seen it that way, or just seen the DVD set that went out?

Brian> We are doing that this weekend actually.  That’s coming up, so everyone in production will get to see it.  Someone else in the cast had a copy and was watching it in their trailer, so I kind of snuck in and watched it, which I wanted to do honestly.  The first time you watch anything that you do, it’s disturbing.  You’re picking everything apart, so I kind of wanted to get that out of the way so that I could really enjoy the screening with the cast and crew and producers.  I’m glad I saw it, and got all of my actor crap out of the way. 

MediaBlvd> Can you describe your character a little bit?  How do you see Lt. Matthew Scott, and where he goes?

Brian> I guess the thing for me is I just always wanted Matt to be real.  It really speaks to how we’re trying to do this show.  We’re really trying to keep it grounded, and give it a sort of every man feel.  These characters could be your neighbor or your son.  I think you should hopefully walk away from the show, and feel you could run into people like this on the street.  That was always really important to me with Matt, I just wanted to make everything real.  He’s a deceptively simple guy, but he has a very intense and sad back-story that is full of a lot of loss and a lot of challenges.  I really admire the fact that instead of quitting or giving up, or getting into drugs or whatever, he found his new life in the military.  In an odd way, his experience on Destiny, his experience on the show is tragic.  As tragic and crazy and chaotic as it is, it actually is giving him an opportunity to be the soldier that he always wanted to be.  It’s kind of a mixed blessing for him actually.  He’s a guy’s guy.  He will go out with you to have a beer and a burger.  He’s working class, and he’s salt of the Earth, kind of the Boy Scout on Destiny, but he’s a complicated one.  I just like the kid, I like him a lot.

MediaBlvd> I was reading somewhere that you’d talked to some Air Force people about the character.  Can you talk a bit about that, or what kind of advice they gave you?

Brian> We had a really great Air Force representative on the show.  Stargate has had a really great relationship with the Air Force over the years, and that has continued on with this show.  Angelique McDonald, who is our Air Force adviser,;I had some conversations with her.  I was curious about the nature of these 1^st Lieutenants.  They come out of these officer candidate schools, and the thing that is interesting, and that she is really helping me to see is how vulnerable these guys are, and what a nerve wracking position it is to be in.  You’ve got the book learning, and you’ve got the practical training, the things you know in your head.  But part of the way that the military works is that the Sergeants take these guys in, and kind of train them on the job.  That was a side of the military that I wasn’t really familiar with, and was very curious about.  It’s awesome to see that relationship happening with Lt. Scott and Sgt. Greer.  You see Scott learning a lot from this very hardened, very intense, and very good soldier.  And Scott isn’t there yet.  Scott is finding his voice and his command presence. He has a lot of potential, but he has a lot to learn, and that is pretty typical of Lieutenants.

MediaBlvd> Going back to the 3^rd episode, without giving any spoilers, was that filmed in White Sands New Mexico?

Brian> Yeah, that was White Sands, New Mexico.  It was actually at the missile range, and there are apparently all sorts of ordinances buried there.  There were areas that we couldn’t go to, because they hadn’t been screened.  They actually have to go in and screen with metal detectors, anywhere that we wanted to shoot.  There could be an unexploded rocket from the 1960’s buried in there.  But we felt very safe.  We felt very professional.  It’s the military and they are going to take pretty good care of us.  

MediaBlvd> Yeah, that would be a public relations disaster if something happened.

Brian> A disaster, yeah!  But it was great too; it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done too.  It was 117 degrees out there at one point.  And I’m wearing all black; I’ve got that big old backpack and that gun.  I got woozy a couple of times and had to take some Pedialyte, and have my finger pricked to check glucose levels and all of that stuff.  It was a very harsh environment.  If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to get heat stroke.  It was a great adventure to be shooting in an environment that can harm you if you weren’t careful.  I thought it was awesome!

MediaBlvd> Is this the time that you want a body double so you only have to do close-ups?

Brian> Well, thank God, they do have stand-ins.  We’ll block the scene, and the stand-ins will go and do what we did so the camera men can refine their shots. In this show, that’s very important because of the nature of the handheld camera movements. While it looks very spontaneous, it’s very carefully choreographed for the camera guys.  Thank God for our stand-ins, or we’d have been roasting alive!

MediaBlvd> From your Twitter page, I see you’ve gotten into crossfit training.  Is that something you’ve picked up for the show, or something you’d have gotten into anyway?

Brian> Yeah, it is.  I knew I wanted to do something different, as far as working out, for Scott.  I didn’t want to do the regular gym routine, because then you look like a guy who hangs out at the gym.  I didn’t want Scott to look like that.  I wanted him to be very, very fit and very lean, because he is a military guy.  The military training is calisthenics based, and crossfit happens to be very calisthenics based as well.  Actually, a lot of special forces units use crossfit techniques to train when they are out in the field.  That immediately peaked my interest, and it’s helped me give him that sort of lean, soldier physique that I wanted him to have, rather than just a big old gym dude.

MediaBlvd> What were your experiences like at Comic Con?  I know most of the cast was there and put on quite a good show.

Brian> It was really a big success, and I think we have the folks at MGM to thank for that.  They did such a great job of coordinating everything, and getting the word out.  That buzz is such a hard thing to create, and I was really impressed with how well they pushed, promoted, and seemed to genuinely care about the show.  As far as us, it was a very odd experience.  “You don’t know us now, but hopefully you will five months from now!  Anyway, Hi, my name is Brian.”  They just had no clue who we were, and we had no clue who they were.  Whereas I’ve seen tapes with the past casts at Comic Con conventions, and it’s like a family reunion with like 2000 people.  They don’t call you Brian, they call you Lt. Scott.  They refer to your character as if that was who you are.  We weren’t at that place this year.  This was just sort of, “Hey, how you doing?”  This is what the show looks like.  This is who we are.  I’m looking forward to next year when people can actually talk about the show and ask questions about specific moments in the episodes.  That will be really exciting.

MediaBlvd> Do you have any kind of anxiety about this?  A week from now, everyone is going to know your face, and millions of people will suddenly tune in.  I guess you will loose some of your privacy to some extent with that.  Is that something you look forward to, or does it scare you at all?

Brian> I don’t know.  Maybe I’m completely naïve, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.  Michael Shanks and all of them still seem to have a pretty cool kind of private life.  For me, the thing is, this is an amazing show to be involved in.  But it’s a part of my career.  This is really one of the early baby steps I’m taking as an actor.  I’m getting better as an actor, and always looking ahead.  If people recognize me, that’s always kind of exciting, but the most important thing to me is that I walk away from this year knowing that I got better as an actor;  I know how to function on a TV set.  I know how to build a character over 20 episodes.   All of the recognition and stuff like that is all just kind of extraneous, really. 

MediaBlvd> Does the cast get along? Do you hang around off set?

 Brian> Actually, we do.  It’s just a great group of people.  It’s such a cliché thing to say, and I’m sure a lot of casts are actually paid to say this kind of stuff.  “Hey, look at us, we get along real well!”  Then they all show up to set and are stabbing each other in the backs, trying to break someone’s legs so they can get more scenes.  I can honestly say that I get the same sort of feeling doing this, as I’ve had in the best theatre casts that I’ve had doing this on stage.  There’s a real sort of familiarity and ease, and we laugh a lot.  We always eat lunch together, and we hang out outside as well.  We have picnics, and we had one about two or three weeks ago, and the crew was there as well.  You know, it’s not just the cast that creates that kind of energy.  It’s also the crew.  This is one of the best crews I think, in the industry.  Also the change that they have been able to commit to; it’s completely unlike the shows that they have been working on for the last 15 years.  They’ve embraced that new look, but also embraced us as the new kids on the block.

MediaBlvd> Information about you is kind of sparse out there on the internet, if you wanted to fill out your Wikipedia entry, what would you say?  A lot of people are going to be looking at you next week.  What would you want them to know that is not out there?

Brian> I don’t even know, how do you do that?  Honestly, I’d have no idea.  All that other crap, I don’t care.  I just want them to watch my work, and we’ll go from there.

MediaBlvd> Fair enough!  We’re definitely looking forward to the show and your part in this, and your character is really fascinating.  Good luck, and we’ll talk to you again soon.

Brian> That’s awesome and I appreciate it.