Matthew Scott (Stargate)

First Lieutenant Matthew Scott,

Originally named Jared Nash, Scott was among the first characters to have been created in the series. Before being cast, Smith had not seen the Stargate series, but caught up with much of SG-1 afterward. The character has been well received by critics as well as some of the cast and crew of the series.

Character arc

In season one, Scott is said to be 26 years old.^[2] At age 4, his parents were killed in a car crash and he was raised by a priest whose alcoholism led to his death when Scott was 16. He originally planned to enter the priesthood until he slept with a girl, Annie Balic, and she fell pregnant.^[3] Though Annie told Scott she was not going to go through with the pregnancy she changed her mind and had a boy who she named Matt, after his father.^[4]

In the present day, Scott is in a physical relationship with fellow Icarus Base officer

Actor Brian J. Smith believed Scott started out like something of "the background character in SG-1" and that in Universe he's "all of a sudden [...] this main character in this tragedy." He describes Scott as "an emotional leader"

In the original casting call of the series, Matthew Scott was originally named Jared Nash.^[1] He was among the first of the main characters to have been created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper. Scott was created as a flawed hero, since the viewers could identify with this better than a "perfect hero"; in SG-1 and Atlantis, all the characters often knew the solution to various problems, but the creators didn't want this to be the case in Universe. Wright and Cooper also made the character religious because they avoided doing so in characters in the past.^[13]

Before being cast, Brian J. Smith had been working as a stage actor in New York City for a year and a half and had seen a couple of Stargate episodes.^[14] When he was looking to start a television career, he saw himself to play for guest spots or multi-episode characters rather than series regulars. When he was approached for the role, he was attracted to the writing of the pilot episode and a talk with Robert C. Cooper, who outlined the new approach to shooting the series. He was also attracted to his character's backstory, and was impressed to see "a young man in his twenties portrayed this way," and that the writers did not create Scott in other series where actors Smith's age are portrayed as egotistical, mindless, and sex-craved players.^[9]

Smith taped his Stargate Universe audition and was invited to a screen test in Los Angeles. He received the news of being cast a few days after the screen test.