Michael Shanks

Michael Shanks
Shanks at the Creation Official Stargate Convention, 2007
Born	Michael Garrett Shanks (1970-12-15) December 15, 1970 (age 46) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Occupation	Actor writer director
Years active	1993–present
Spouse(s)	Lexa Doig (m. 2003)
Children	3

Michael Garrett Shanks (born December 15, 1970) is a Canadian actor, writer and director. He is known for playing Dr. Daniel Jackson in the long-running Canadian–American military science fiction television series Stargate SG-1. More recently, Shanks has been playing Dr. Charles Harris on the Canadian medical drama, Saving Hope.

Shanks was born in Vancouver, and grew up in Kamloops, British Columbia. He attended the University of British Columbia and was in the BFA Acting Program from 1990 to 1994 and later appeared in several stage productions, serving a two-year apprenticeship with the prestigious Stratford Festival in Ontario. He made guest appearances on TV series like Highlander and University Hospital, appeared in the TV movie A Family Divided and had a small role in The Call of the Wild, before winning the role of Daniel Jackson on Stargate SG-1.

Shanks played archaeologist Dr. Daniel Jackson throughout the first five seasons of Stargate SG-1 before leaving the show at the end of Stargate SG-1's fifth season, citing creative differences concerning the under-use of his character and the direction of the show as a whole. He made several guest appearances throughout the sixth season playing his own character, as well as voicing the Asgard character Thor. Shanks returned for the seventh and subsequent seasons, winning the Leo Award for Best Lead Performance By A Male in a Dramatic Series in 2004 for the seventh season episode "Lifeboat". During the series' tenth and final season, he signed up for 16 of the 20 episodes, taking some time off in March 2006 for the birth of his third child (second with wife and occasional co-star Lexa Doig).

He appeared in both direct-to-DVD Stargate films released in 2008, Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum, and won the 2009 Leo Award for Lead Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama for Continuum.