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Michael: Yes, during the pilot, on the way back from supper. It was coiled in a tree right next to the path we used to go to and from the tree house. Needless to say we didn't wait around to find out if it had had supper, but went round the back way - quietly!
Steve: And the birds to irritate you …
Michael: Laughing kookaburras. They would sit in the trees in flocks and periodically start up when we tried to shoot a scene. Their incredibly loud shrieks sound exactly like maniacal laughter. The only thing to do was wait until they stopped . One of them followed us around one day, perching on tree branches just above our heads. It didn't laugh - just watched us with great interest, probably looking for food. We liked to think of it as our first audience.
Steve: There was a nurse on the set and an ex motorcycle gang member that acted as a security officer.
Michael: There was a registered nurse present at all times on Main Unit, and 2nd Unit had a member of the crew who could double as a nurse if necessary. There was nothing “ex” about Dave, our chief security man. He had a Harley T-shirt and drooping mustache, and was very good at his job and pleasant have around. Certainly no Hell's Angel!
Steve: How does the 1998 version of the Lost World compare with the series? Or, am I comparing apples and oranges?
Michael: Apples and oranges, Steve. The 1998 version was a complete, two hour, made for television film. It was made in Montreal on a very modest budget. The concept was entirely different: Amanda, the daughter of Maple White, the scientist whose diaries Challenger discovered, appeared in this version. She was very well played by Canadian actress, Jayne Heitmeyer, whom you may have seen in the series Night Man [She is currently costarring in the series Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict ~ Karen's note]. Challenger was played by the Irish star, Patrick Bergin. Roxton was a bad guy. He tried to kill them all for profit. My character was pretty similar to the Summerlee you're familiar with, except I was a paleontologist, as in the original novella.
Steve: In the 1998 version of the Lost World you were dismembered by a T. rex . I understand that at lunch you were shown photographs of your demise and opted to forgo the rest of your meal. Is that true?
Michael: ( laughing ) The special effects people had taken a number of photos and casts of my head, and they’d made a replica of me with a mangled body attached. The head was partly eaten away and everything was covered in stage blood. They showed me what was left of me just as we were breaking for a meal. I must admit that the thing was so lifelike that I was totally horrified and passed on lunch ...
Chiara: What was it like playing Summerlee in two different productions?
Michael: Not much different. In the Montreal production I was grumpy with Challenger and in the series I was mellower, kinder and wiser.
Chiara: What was the funniest thing that happened to you on the set?
Michael: I was given a pistol. They were always handled by the gun people until just before they were needed, and it failed to go off twice. I complained bitterly, and they brought me another one, which also failed to go off in front of about thirty extras. So, when I heard the trigger snap I turned to the camera and said: "Bang!" The gun person told me the pistol was very old, and I yelled at him "So am I - but I can still go off!"
Chiara: What was it like to have a stunt double? What kind of scenes did you do yourself? What kind of scenes were handled by your stuntie?
Michael: It was great fun. Chris, who did the acrobatic stuff like running and falling backwards off the verandah in "Absolute Power", had been watching me closely. One day, I suddenly saw myself running for the balloon with that funny shuffling gait I have, exactly reproduced, and nearly fell off my chair laughing.
Steve: You have something other than cooking and music in common with your character: you and Professor Summerlee are both gardeners. So, tell us about gardening. Did any of the tropical plants on location intrigue you?
Michael: My window-boxes at home were confined to morning glories, scarlet runner beans for their red flowers, some white nicotiana, red geraniums and the like. That was last year, but this year I didn't bother much as I was away again a lot of the time and I didn't want to bother friends to have to come in and water all the time. It gets extremely hot in Montreal in summer. But many years ago, when I was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I took an apartment which had a garden totally overrun with Chinese Rhubarb - a nasty weed which spreads underground. I dug it all up and made a rock garden, and before the summer was over I had a picture book garden. I found all the plants in Australia intriguing: they’re so different from ours. The gum trees, for example, with their faintly bluish tinge, the giant ferns, and the wattle. There was an annoying but harmless plant called Wait-a-Bit. It was a trailing vine with tiny thorns on it that caught on your clothes. You had no choice but to "wait a bit" and release yourself. And there were some pretty nasty shrubs, one with vicious large thorns, and trees with stinging leaves rather like our poison ivy, but not quite as bad. Safety Officers marked them with strips of red rag so we could avoid them. Trouble was, they took the red rags off for the takes, so we were at risk just after a shot. We had to remember where the rags had been.
Steve: The pilot was shot entirely on location. How much of the series was shot on location?
Michael: The tree house was originally built on one of the ranches. Studio space wasn’t available in late 1998. That was okay for the pilot, but not for the series. The tree house had to be reconstructed in a studio down to the last detail. This enabled us to do tree house scenes in the event of lousy weather. Most of the episodes had one or two major interior scenes, which were also done in the studio. These sets were built as needed, and taken down after the episodes were over. While still in use, they stood at the opposite end of the studio from where the tree house was standing. By the way, the tree house, as you see it in the episodes, is inserted into the large tree using CGI ( computer graphic imaging ) during post-production. The elevator you see in some of the scenes actually works.
Steve: What was the cost per episode?
Michael: Last season worked out to about 1.4 million actually. I don't know what this year's allocation is - not much different, I’d imagine.
Chiara: How long where you in makeup every day. In what way was your face, hair, etc. altered?
Michael: My make-up was quite easily applied. The only change was to have a slightly darker color carefully brushed into my beard. I was usually done in about 15 minutes. But David Orth's prosthetic head mask when he turned into an old man in "Paradise Found" took five hours to apply and cost thousands of dollars.
Steve: We understand you all got fed pretty well while on location.
Michael: Tea, coffee and soft drinks were always available, but the mid-morning snack was often so filling that one had to be careful not to spoil one's appetite for lunch!
Steve: If shooting continued for another five hours, another meal was served on location. Correct?
Michael: Exactly. And there was always so much food left over that we could take home doggie-bags for late night munchies if we wished.
Steve: What did you do after shooting was over for the day?
Michael: Not too much … usually. Some of the cast went off for exercise classes and/or swimming, and then, if there had been no supper provided on set, we'd either cook something for ourselves or drift a couple of blocks down to one of the many good restaurants on Tedder Ave. There you could get everything from Japanese to Italian. Then a quick look at the lines for the next day's scenes. Then bed, hopefully to sleep, but sometimes not for very long!
Chiara: How about weekends?
Michael: Weekends were great: I had a car and explored the beautiful scenery along the Gold Coast and in the Hinterland mountains behind it. I found many little eating-places with excellent food, even antique shops, and some wonderful high look-offs which were spectacular, especially at sunset. During the mid-season 10 day break, I visited both Sydney and Melbourne. Melbourne especially caught my fancy: it has a large section known as the Paris section. It looks very much like the smart area around the Champs Elysees. Another highlight was an evening boat and dinner cruise around Sydney Harbor with great views of the unique Opera House. I didn't get to see what it looked like inside as there wasn't enough time.
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