Posted at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21

Dave Foley gets around.

The comic and actor, who was a member of the famous comedy troupe Kids in the Hall and starred in the sitcom “NewsRadio,” has been making the rounds as a TV guest star.

He’s done memorable turns on “In Plain Sight,” “Lovespring International,” “Scrubs” and “Will & Grace.” In last Sunday’s episode of “Brothers & Sisters” he appeared as Ron Rifkin’s “disappointing and annoying blind date.”

At 8 p.m. Friday he plays another grating but comical character on Sci Fi Channel’s “Stargate Atlantis.”

“A brilliant asshole—I guess is what my character is,” he told me recently. “It’s fun to play.”

Foley (left) stars as Malcolm Tunney, an old schoolmate and rival of David Hewlett’s Dr. Rodney McKay (right). Tunney has invented (actually stolen from McKay) a device that is supposed to stop global warming, but once he turns it on it almost kills everybody at a big geek convention, including Bill Nye the Science Guy (below left) and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (below right)—who play themselves.

Foley said it was great to meet the famous real-life scientists, who he said he watches regularly on their science shows.

“I’m a science geek, so it was exciting to meet them,” he said. “They were both really nice guys. More than anything I just wanted to talk about science [with them].”

In the episode, called “Brainstorm,” the device locks everyone in the convention center, leaving McKay and Jennifer Keller (Jewel Staite) to figure out how to shut it down while avoiding being struck and killed by “freeze lightning”—bursts of sub-zero air that pop up out of the blue.

Foley said the actors had to pretend to duck when the lightning hit. The effects were added later, so they just waited for the director to shout “Duck!”

“That’s when you feel a little bit silly to be an actor,” he said. “You’re acting like a child. That’s when acting becomes pretending.”

The self-described science fiction fan (“I’ve seen every episode of ‘Star Trek’ at least a hundred times”) says he would do the show again, hopefully to play an alien.

“I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to be an alien or be on a weird planet, but yeah, in a second I would go back.”

On working with David Hewlett and Jewell Staite:
“David and Jewell were fantastic to work with ... David’s character is such a great, neurotic, crazy brilliant character. It was a lot of fun.”

On sci fi shows he watches:
“I would love to guest star on ‘Eureka.’ I love Eureka, it’s a great show.” “I like ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Torchwood,’ ‘Lost,’ ‘Heroes.’ I’ve been watching ‘Fringe’ this season—that would be a cool show to do as well”

On his various guest spots over the years:

Paul on “Brothers & Sisters”
“That show has a lot of stars. They were fantastic. I got to bring my daughter down to meet Sally [Field]. My daughter is obsessed with ‘Homeward Bound’ and ‘Homeward Bound 2.’ She go to meet the voice of Sassy.”

Horst Vanderhoff on “In Plain Sight”
“It was a fun couple of weeks in Albuquerque. [It was] nice to get to play a guy who turns out to be quite a bad guy. I spent most of my time there shackled.”

Stuart Lamarack on “Will & Grace”
“That was great ... It was also very eye-opening as to what a [big] hit show that was. After doing those episodes, everywhere I went someone came up to me saying ‘Hey, you’re that guy from “Will & Grace.”’”

Dr. Hendrick on “Scrubs”
“One of the things I really loved about that gig was they shot ... in an abandoned hospital that was right outside my backyard, so my commute to that show was three minutes—a three-minute walk. That was a fun show.”

Timothy on “Lovespring International”
“That was such a huge group of us and everyone was improvising. It was a free-for-all.”

On starring in “From the Earth to the Moon”:
“I got to play an astronaut. Having grown up during the Apollo days, that was pretty exciting ... I got to wear a space suit; got to sit in the space capsule; got to pretend to walk on the moon.”

On a Kids in the Hall reunion:
“We’re in talks with the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Co.] to do 8-part mini-series.”

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Thank you for the interview with Dave Foley. Really looking forward to tonight's episode of Stargate Atlantis. Best wishes!

Curt's reply: You will have to let me know what you thought of the ep, Morjana. Thanks for reading and getting in touch.

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