One of the things that any good Star Trek fan knows is that over the years, each of the five actors and actresses to play the role of captain on Star Trek has brought their own unique style to the role. That was never more apparent to me than at Star Trek London where I got to listen to each of these talented actors speak freely and answer questions from their fans. Although each talk was a carbon copy of the others in terms of setup and format, all five were wildly different experiences thanks entirely to the individual on the stage.
Avery Brooks spoke little about Star Trek and instead focused his answers on family, fatherhood and how his work has affected those personal roles for him. Scott Bakula was possibly the most easy going of all the captains; his talk felt like an intimate conversation in a bar despite the thousands of people around us. This was a direct contrast to William Shatner's, whose classical training and unique personality shone out from the stage. His answers were long, divergent and always told a great story. Sir Patrick Stewart, the only local of the group, was eager to talk about his home country and past experiences while Kate Mulgrew was possibly the most welcoming of all, full of life and happy to discuss any topic – she even brought fans up on stage with her and made it clear how much she loved being among the people in the room. All five talks were fascinating and all five captains seemed genuinely happy to be on the stage, which was deeply refreshing to see. There were so many great moments across the five discussions that I wish it were possible to simply transcribe each of them here. Instead, I have condensed each down to some of my favorite moments that I can share with you.
Avery Brooks AKA Captain Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine
Avery began by informing us that the most important thing he has done since Deep Space Nine is “to stay alive.” He shared a lot of his experiences of being a parent – both on the show and in his real life – with the audience and brought Cirroc Lofton, who played his son on Deep Space Nine, on stage with him. Cirroc has recently become a father himself and explained that it allowed him “to understand where I've come from in a different way; and where I come from is largely due to the guidance and love from this man here. I'm doing my best to reciprocate that to my own kid.”
On being asked if he liked the way the show handled his character at the end, Avery replied that he did not. “We thought you'd be thrilled, we made him a god!” the writers told him to which he replied, “No. One of the most important things is to watch your children grow. A god can't do that.” Changing perspective slightly, Avery was also asked how he handled being an inspiration. “When my parents left the planet, I realized I have to behave better now than I ever did before,” he explained. “I have to do all those things they said because now I don't answer to any man on the planet.” His parents were also present in another of his answers; when asked who he’d like to go back and meet in the past he simply replied, “What I really want to do is talk to my parents right now.”
Five sound bites:
- "We are the sum of everything that has gone before."
- "The most important thing for Sisko was for Avery to get out of the way. What percentage of Avery became part of Sisko? I'll never know."
- "Music is as necessary as air. I didn't make that up but that's pretty, isn't it?"
- "I'm curious about the world, about how we go and where we're going."
- "There are many things in this world that we can't fix, but we can try. That's what Star Trek does."
Scott Bakula AKA Captain Jonathan Archer of Enterprise
Scott’s talk was very relaxed with many questions about his time on Quantum Leap (he played lead character Sam Beckett from 1989 to 1993) as well as his work on Star Trek. He loved talking about Enterprise and was clearly very proud of the show that is often considered the weakest of the franchise. “We were a subtle show, we had a different approach,” he explained, “my goal was assembling the Federation but our journey got cut short.” He also explained that 9/11 “altered the whole shape of the show” and provided a different focus, but one that retained the original goals of Gene Roddenberry from the beginning – that of approaching the issues facing us in the real world, but transferring them to the future. Scott was attracted to the role of the Enterprise’s first captain because of the unique challenges it gave the character. “The universe was brand new to him,” he told us; Archer had to be the “moral center of each episode with no idea of what that is!”
As for Quantum Leap, Scott said that he feels there’s “a Sam Beckett in everyone” and that Sam is “still out there, doing good deeds.” There’s still a lot of love for the show and I think some Trek fans may have been influenced to go out and start watching it, which can only be a good thing for sci-fi.
Five sound bites:
- "Hi, we're from Earth, I hope you love us as much as we love you. Please stop shooting at us."
- "The idea of who Sam was stayed within every character and every experience."
- "I like to think that my first instinct [on meeting a new alien species] would be the same [as Captain Archer's]. How can we work together?".
- "Sam's still out there doing good deeds."
- "People think I'm dead on Chuck, but you never know."
Kate Mulgrew AKA Captain Kathryn Janeway of Voyager
Kate was the only captain who opened with a spiel of her own before going into an audience Q&A session. “I’m feeling young, I’m looking peculiar but everything’s good!” she announced to cheers, referring to her new purple hair in place for a role in next year’s Orange is the New Black. Kate encouraged personal questions and didn’t hesitate in giving details when answering; her gender was a key point in both questions and answers. “I'm here because Paramount took a chance on a woman,” she recounted when talking about a speech she gave at the White House for Women in Science. On being asked how she found the balance between strong leadership and femininity, she explained that she has “a lot of brothers. I learned by the age of four how to push them around.” Kate also talked about her children and their loathing of Star Trek for taking her away, “they spitballed the screen for two hours at the Voyager premier ” she recounted.
When asked about a potential on-screen relationship with First Officer Chakotay, she laughed, “Everyone wanted Janeway to have a big bubumbabumba with Chakotay but I ask you, who’s watching the ship?” she asked back. “Kirk, God bless him, I don't know how he got any work done...” Regarding the show’s finale, Kate said she was happy as she had a say in her character’s ending. “I want her to go down with the ship, but to live the tell the tale,” she told the writers, later getting her wish. Throughout her talk, Kate made it clear how much she loved the fans and how they were “[her] kind of people;” she explained that “Patrick said ‘of all the work I've done I’m proudest of this,’ and he was right.”
Five sound bites:
- "Do you think these people, who are known for their intelligence, will be so stupid as to follow me because you've dolled me up?" [on arguing with the Producers over Janeway's appearance]
- "I'll bet a lot of you are geeks, nerds, gay and wildly liberal - and you're my kind of people."
- "I think I was born a cowboy, but I've learned diplomacy over the years."
- "The missing piece of the Voyager crew was a gay leader, but that will come."
- "Nobody has ever asked me if I believe in God. My answer is that I don't know."
W__illiam Shatner AKA Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek: The Original Series__
William Shatner’s classical theater training was immediately apparent in his talk. Every question was answered with a long, winding tale. Sometimes these were so long that we almost forgot what the original question was, yet everything he said was engaging and interesting. “Is there life after Star Trek?” a fan asked at the beginning, “Yes there is,” he answered quickly, “but right now we're celebrating with Star Trek.” He spoke about the genesis of the franchise and of attempting to find what Star Trek was as they began to make the show. “What stories do we want to tell, do they have meaning or is it just adventures and pretty girls?” he asked, “We began to find the story about halfway through the first season.” On being asked who he admired, he gave two wildly different answers – Sir Laurence Olivier and Marlin Brando – and discussed how vastly different, yet equally wonderful, their acting styles were. “There is an arc between England and America [in acting style], and I from Canada, fit somewhere between,” he told us with a grin.
The subject of the 2009 JJ Abrahms reboot naturally came up later in the talk. “I think Chris Pine makes a wonderful Captain Kirk,” he stated simply, but when asked if he would like to appear in any of the new films he seemed doubtful. “Being in big films is boring as hell and I don't know if I can afford the time,” he explained. He went on to talk about his time directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and about the difficult compromises he had to make, including a long and funny story about the rock-men suits he requested. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” he exclaimed repeatedly at the final cost of the suit. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?!?!?!”
Five sound bites:
- "I don't think I'd want to play any of the other captains because I'm very happy with Kirk."
- "You know you're really old when you go back in time and you're still old. Leonard didn't find that particularly funny." [on Nimoy's appearance in Star Trek 2009]
- "Acting in a series is debilitating, relationships disappear."
- "I feel that people die the way they live."
- "I chose to play Kirk's death with awe and wonder, the challenge is to maintain that attitude."
Patrick Stewart AKA Captain Jean Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Patrick Stewart received possibly the loudest applause of the five captains when he appeared on stage. He received a lot of questions about living in England and about his past, his recent appearance on Who Do You Think You Are having thrown much of that into the limelight in recent weeks. Patrick was one of many celebrities who carried the Olympic Torch on its relay of the UK. He recounted that the experience "gave me such a vision of the diversity of the UK, and that gave me such satisfaction.” Patrick was also asked about the possibility of recasting The Next Generation in the same way that The Original Series was remade in 2009 for prequels or otherwise, and specifically about whether he believed anyone could fill the shoes of Captain Picard. To answer, he recalled that another of his iconic roles has recently been recast well – Professor X. “A lot of justice has been done in the recasting of Professor Xavier” he told us, “although I’m looking forward to the moment when they shave his head” he added with a grin. “He’s got an awful lot of hair, has Mr [James] McAvoy!”
Later in his talk, Patrick recounted the day when he as a teenager had to stand before a panel of councilors who would decide whether or not the local council would award him a grant to attend drama school. “Suppose you go off to drama school and we pay for it,” they said, “what good would that do for Yorkshire?” Patrick replied that if he got the opportunity, he would “do everything in [his] power to see that [he] gave something back to Yorkshire.” Naturally he didn’t know whether his answer ever affected those councilors but he was awarded not just a grant but a County Major Scholarship, without which he would not have been standing in front of us.
Five sound bites:
- "The thing is with The Original Series, they were these truly iconic individuals and the whole mythology started right there, so it makes sense that they should look back to those guys. It doesn't make as much sense to look back to The Next Generation; because we were just that."
- On Star Trek we are wearing costume, and just like Elizabethan costume, no pockets. Sometimes actors would stand awkwardly because they didn’t know what to do with their hands, but if you’ve spent half your career acting in tights..."
- "There has been a fundamental niceness of all our encounters [at DSTL], and that makes me very proud."
- "All those years sitting on thrones of England were nothing but preparation for sitting in the captain's chair."
- [On attending graduation ceremonies as Chancellor of Huddersfield University] "It gives me great satisfaction to be able to congratulate young people, and very often not-so-young people, on successfully earning their degree."
GeekMom attended Destination Star Trek London free of charge courtesy of Media 10/Showmasters.
