Dr. Daniel Jackson is an anthropologist, linguist and expert in
ancient and current cultures; he speaks more than 20 languages,
including ancient Egyptian. He had originally been contracted by the
military to decipher a mysterious hieroglyphic cartouche. His
subsequent translation of it allowed Earth's first discovered stargate
to be opened. As a member of SG-1, Jackson's humanistic approach was
often in conflict with Col. Jack O'Neill's militaristic style.
Some saw Dr. Jackson as a soft, brainy, clumsy scientist who
carried a wide-eyed enthusiasm with him through every mission, but he
earned the heartfelt trust and respect of O'Neill and all the others —
never more so than after sacrificing his worldly existence to save
millions of lives in Kelowna, a country on the planet designated
P9Y-4C3. He didn't die, however, so much as he "Ascended" to a higher
spiritual plane of noncorporeal existence. Even before this, he had
been considered like a deity to the people of Abydos, the planet on
which he'd chosen to stay following the first SG mission. Later
banished from Ascension, with no memory of the experience, he returned
to human form and rejoined SG-1.
A native of Kamloops, British Columbia, near Vancouver,
Michael Shanks
studied commerce before deciding to pursue acting at the University of
British Columbia, from which he graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of
Fine Arts degree. He went on to perform for two seasons at the renowned
Stratford Shakespeare Festival, essaying such roles as Lorenzo in
The Merchant of Venice and Menteith in
Macbeth as well as roles in
King Lear and
The Merry Wives of Windsor. His other theater credits include
Amadeus,
Love of the Nightingale,
Translations and
Wait Until Dark.
Shanks made his TV debut in an episode of
Highlander, "The Zone," and went on to guest-star on such series as
The Commish and SCI FI's
The Outer Limits (the episodes "
Mary 25" and "
Manifest Destiny"). He played a college student who helped commit a shocking crime with his fraternity brothers in
A Family Divided, his telefilm debut, and has appeared in films released internationally, including
Suspicious River and
Suddenly Naked. Among his science-fiction credits are the telefilm
Escape from Mars and guest appearances on UPN's
The Twilight Zone revival series and the
Andromeda episodes "
Star-Crossed" and "
Day of Judgement, Day of Wrath," alongside Christopher Judge. Shanks directed the
Stargate SG-1 episode "
Double Jeopardy" and scripted "Resurrection."
His other work includes the South Africa movie
Sumuru, the Emmy Award-winning telefilm
Door to Door and special guest appearances in the seventh-season
Stargate SG-1
episodes "The Abyss," "The Changeling" and "Full Circle." In addition,
Shanks provides the voice of the Asgard supreme commander, Thor.
