Where is the Stargate Universe Cast Now? Ming-Na Wen, Robert Carlyle & more
Though it lasted only two seasons and left fans in suspense with a tantalizing cliffhanger of a non-ending, Stargate Universe still feels as fresh today as it did when the spinoff series first debuted at SYFY all the way back in 2009. Boasting fresh characters occupying a different corner of the fictional sci-fi world first made famous in Roland Emmerich’s landmark 1994 Stargate, SGU leaned heavily into dramatic, character-driven storylines brought vividly to life by the series’ standout ensemble cast.
Stranded light-years from Earth aboard the mysterious Destiny spacecraft left behind by the enigmatic Ancients, the ship’s unlikely crew of refugees slowly coalesced into a capable gang of survivors who furthered exploration of the strange space-hopping portals united by the disparate lore of the wider Stargate story-verse. Now 12 years removed from the series’ untimely demise, most of the core cast remains recognizable for post-SGU screen roles that span a huge variety of genres, from Louis Ferreira’s cool-headed drug lord on Breaking Bad to Ming-Na Wen’s fan-favorite turn as Fennec Shand in the Star Wars small-screen galaxy.
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Want to dive deeper into what the Stargate Universe gang has been up to since their days on board the Destiny? Let’s take a closer look:
David Blue (Eli Wallace)
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The unemployed, 20-something nerd who inadvertently got a Stargate Command invite by solving a video game puzzle, Eli Wallace (David Blue) might’ve been a certified game geek — but he definitely lent SGU’s cold, dark Destiny vessel a much-needed dose of heart and humor, and usually at times when the crew needed it the most. Blue came to the series already known to Ugly Betty viewers as Cliff St. Paul on the mid-2000s ABC comedy, and has since become a familiar name to fans of Nickelodeon’s Henry Danger and its recent 2021 spinoff Danger Force, where he’s played recurring character Rick Twitler. Blue’s also been in a handful of smaller-budget films from the early 2000s onward, with his most recognized role coming opposite Thora Birch in the 2018 rom-com The Competition.
Alaina Huffman (Tamara Johansen)
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As the medic with the most training among the ragtag group swept through the Stargate and onto the Destiny, Tamara Johansen (Alaina Huffman) patched up the ship’s core crew as needed, typically with a calm, no-nonsense demeanor that often made her the most level-headed presence in the room. Just as SGU was spinning up at SYFY, Huffman already was earning a loyal genre following for her 2007 role as Maureen Bowers on the network’s short-lived comics-based series Painkiller Jane. Huffman’s screen career dates to the early 2000s, though, making her a recognizable face among sci-fi TV fans both before and after her Stargate stint with recurring roles on Smallville (as Dinah Lance aka Black Canary), Supernatural (as Josie Sands aka Abaddon), and, most recently, on both The 100 and Riverdale, where she starred in the latter as the icy Ghoulies leader Twyla Twyst.
Elyse Levesque (Chloe Armstrong)
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A U.S. Senator’s daughter who watched her father sacrifice himself to buy the Destiny’s crew a much-needed early fighting chance, Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque) was among the ship’s fish-out-of-water civilian gate-crashers who, over time, proved more than up to the task of enduring the harsh realities of space. Though she’d played numerous drop-in characters prior to SGU on a slew of Canadian and U.S. genre series, Levesque’s small-screen career has been especially busy in the decade-plus since: Fans have spotted her in recurring roles on Season 1 of The Originals (as Genevieve), Orphan Black (as Detective Maddy Enger), and, most recently, in single-episode appearances on Magnum P.I., The Orville, and NBC’s newly-revived Quantum Leap. Keen-eyed Arrowverse fans also remember Levesque for her brief-but-memorable turn as Guinevere when the Legends of Tomorrow gang dropped in on medieval times in the series’ 2017 “Camelot/3000” episode.
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Brian J. Smith (Matthew Scott)
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Stargate Universe loyalists will forever debate which character best represented the heart and soul of the series, but for many, that honor goes to First Lt. Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith), the green but earnest junior SGC member who always seemed to find the right path through impossibly tough moral choices. A Juilliard-trained actor who’d previously appeared in a tiny, unrelated 2004 part on Stargate Atlantis, Smith’s biggest small-screen roles since SGU have come on the original Gossip Girl (as Max Harding), and on Netflix’s Lana and Lilly Wachowski-created sci-fi series Sense8 (as Chicago P.D. officer Will Gorski). Sticking with the Wachowskis for a later turn on the big screen, Smith also played Neo-obsessed crew member Berg in 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections.
Louis Ferreira (Everett Young)
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Even-keel, tactical in his thinking, and almost always at odds with SGU’s brilliant-but-erratic Dr. Rush, Col. Everett Young (Louis Ferreira) represented the final word in military experience and leadership aboard the Destiny. Fittingly, Ferreira brought plenty of actual acting experience to his Stargate role, having previously appeared in dozens of movies and TV series — under his early-career stage name of Justin Louis — from the 1980s onward. Though his post-SGU career features a lengthy starring turn in Canadian crime series Motive (as Detective Oscar Vega) and an extended stint on The Man in the High Castle as a D.C. resistance leader, tons of TV fans likely know Ferreira’s later work via his short but high-impact turn as would-be meth kingpin Declan on the final season of Breaking Bad, as well as via the later films in the Saw horror-verse, where he played recurring minor antagonist Art Blank.
Robert Carlyle (Nicholas Rush)
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The enigmatically brilliant mind who perhaps understood the Destiny and its Ancient tech origins better than anyone else, Dr. Nicholas Rush (Scottish actor Robert Carlyle) anchored Stargate Universe as one of the show’s strongest personalities…even if viewers (and Col. Young himself) often questioned his well-hidden intentions. An established actor with a lengthy pre-SGU big-screen résumé that includes 1990s classics Trainspotting, The Full Monty, The World is Not Enough, and Angela’s Ashes, Carlyle’s post-Stargate career is highlighted by a lengthy stint as Rumpelstiltskin on ABC’s Once Upon a Time, in 2017’s T2 Trainspotting (where he reprised his original role as Francis "Franco" Begbie), and on the ongoing UK political thriller series Cobra, where Carlyle plays British Prime Minister Robert Sutherland.
Jamil Walker Smith (Ronald Greer)
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Comfortable in his soldier’s element whenever combat flared, yet an unpredictable wildcard elsewhere, Master Sgt. Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) created tons of character tension on Stargate Universe by frequently managing to lose his cool in those quieter moments when there wasn’t an obvious enemy to fight. Smith already was at home in front of the camera from an early age long before being cast in SGU, voicing Arnold’s longtime Nickelodeon pal Gerald in Hey Arnold! as well as breakaway feature films Hey Arnold!: The Movie (2002) and Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie (2017). Much of Smith’s busiest career period unfolded during the early-2000s years before his SGU casting, including single-episode TV parts — all before the age of 20 — in The X-Files, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Touched By an Angel, and NYPD Blue. After SGU, Smith had a brief story line in the 2014 season of General Hospital as con artist Jeffrey Scribner, while appearing in a number of single-episode TV roles as well as small-budget films including his own 2011 feature American Dream — an award-winning film Smith also wrote and directed.
Ming-Na Wen (Camile Wray)
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Currently in demand among Star Wars fans hopeful that there’s more to her story as Fennec Shand in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Ming-Na Wen held a deceptively low-key role on Stargate Universe as International Oversight Advisory (IOA) representative Camile Wray. With huge acting recognition dating all the way to 1993’s The Joy Luck Club, as well as her leading voice role as the star of Disney’s original Mulan (1998), Wen was a bona fide acting celebrity long before her turn in Stargate Universe. She continues to command attention today, with key post-SGU roles voicing Mulan and other Disney characters in everything from animated series like Sofia the First and Guardians of the Galaxy to her main live-action role as Agent Melinda May in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Most recently, Wen has voiced a character in Velma at HBO Max, and has a slew of upcoming roles in feature films Persephone and Glitter & Doom, as well as a recurring voice role in the animated Gremlins small-screen series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.
Stargate SG-1 star Richard Dean Anderson would improvise a lot on set