"I just thought it could be part of Teal'c's ongoing assimilation process. Of course, then they started coming up with questions like, 'How do we introduce it? How do we explain it? Why it is blond?' That was the big one. There's a quick reference to it in our fourth-season opener Small Victories and that's that. The writers definitely didn't want to dwell on it!"
"Teal'c has taken on a number of human characteristics and he's definitely learnt how to better express himself emotionally. In an episode this season called Crossroads we actually see him involved in a relationship with a woman from his past. He gets to experience a whole range of feelings and it was just so much fun doing that. If we'd done this story back in the first season it would have been completely different and, I think, personally, not as compelling. So I'm pleased with the way it turned out."
"Another change we've seen in Teal' c is that he's participating more by offering his input into what SG-1 does. I mean, he's still the big strong guy who helps beat up the bad guys but now he's suggesting ways of how to do it. Teal'c has become intertwined in these peoples' lives and with what's going on around him in the Stargate complex, giving him the impetus to contribute more vocally. I have to tell you, because I didn't say a lot those first couple of seasons, which I was completely in favour of, my reaction to a situation was more honest. It wasn't scripted, let's put it that way. I find now that I'm speaking more I have to try a lot harder to listen, and I don't always catch as much as I used to. So that in itself makes my performance different."
"I'm a sucker for heart-wrenching stories. For example, I loved the first season episode Cold Lazarus when Jack O'Neill [Richard Dean Anderson] interacts with the alien who takes the form of his dead son. That really got to me. In the second season there's the one [Secrets] in which Daniel Jackson [Michael Shanks] returns to Abydos and discovers his wife Sha're [Vaitiare Bandera] is pregnant with Apophis's child. To have that level of emotional depth in a Sci-Fi story was just so neat and I was proud to be a part of that. One of my favourite Teal'c stories is still Bloodlines. That's when Teal'c returned home to Chulak to see his wife and son and resolve some personal issues. He also had the chance to see his mentor Bra'tac [Tony Amendola]. I thought that was a great episode for my character."
"The hardest part of this business is the toll it takes on your loved ones. It's difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with a spouse or whoever when you pretty much only have the weekends. Because I happen to be working on several projects at the moment my weekends consist of Sunday night. I'm up early in the morning and I don't get home until late, so it got to the point where I hardly ever saw my children. Now I bring them to work with me and it's just terrific. I have to get them up at four-thirty in the morning but, thank God, they love it and I love having them around."
"One of the great things about Teal' c is that he's popular with children. I get a lot of requests for autographed pictures and I'm invited to appear at events designed to raise money to help kids. Both Stargate and my character allow me to become involved in causes that I don't know if I'd be involved in otherwise. It's certainly one of the most rewarding things about this job. After all, what's more important than taking care of our children?"