Star Trek's Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew Speak at Dragon*Con 2009

Interesting tidbits about Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew have appeared from the Dragon*Con convention on Daily Dragon Online.

Daily Dragon reports that Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard on The Next Generation, had interesting things to say about his friend and colleague Jonathan Frakes:

One of Stewart’s fondest memories is of Frakes’s first chance to direct an episode of TNG. He said that Frakes was “confident right from the start.” Stewart felt proud to have witnessed the beginning of a wonderful directorial career.

It seems that Patrick Stewart feels that there will be no more Captain Jean-Luc Picard for him. During a comment about a possible cameo in JJ Abram’s movie he said: ''I feel I have left behind a legacy as Jean-Luc Picard that doesn’t need adding to.'' He also called the new movie ''terrific.''

Stewart also had a few words for both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner:

When asked about the opportunity to work with the legendary Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, Stewart joked, “Can you be legendary and be alive?” On the subject of Nimoy, Stewart said he was, “somewhat in awe of his presence on stage.” Stewart was impressed with Nimoy’s humor, dignity, and enthusiasm. Stewart then said, “Mr. Shatner, on the other hand.” A long paused followed, after which he added, “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”

Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway on Voyager, also had some interesting things to say about her time on Star Trek.

On her views about being the first female captain on Star Trek, Daily Dragon Online reports:

She said that her tenure as Janeway was the hardest decade of her life. As the third captain in the Star Trek franchise (she didn’t count the space station featured in Deep Space Nine, as “star ships fly”) and the “first girl,” she described a “sense of privilege, terror,” and a “new frontier,” paraphrasing what she called the “Star Trek mantra.”

“Just me and a lot of men, just the way I like it.” Mulgrew cautioned, “you don’t want to make me naughty; it never ends.”

Daily Dragon also reported what Mulgrew said about Trekkers, Captain Janeway's ever changing hairstyle and her status as a leader:

Mulgrew complimented the assembled fans, asserting “these are Trekkers, the smartest audience in the world.” She stressed that there was no need for feminine wiles and romantic interests to establish Janeway as a leader. After some initial battles over her hair style and uniform, the producers left her “to her own devices” and “within two seasons the entire demographic shifted and broadened. You are the greatest audience in the world.”

About her time on Voyager:

She remembered giving “the best I could give” to Voyager: “certainly I tried [with] two little devils, I mean sons, at home.” She warned that you can’t give 24 hours to the job and 24 hours to your children. “You do your best and forgive yourself. It’s diabolical.”

You can read more by clicking on the links below

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Exclusive Robert Picardo Interview: Part 1

Picture 1: Robert Picardo as Stargate Atlantis's new leader, Richard Woolsey, and Paul McGillion as Beckett

Picture 2: Robert Picardo as the Doctor and his creator Lewis Zimmerman and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi in the Voyager episode ''Life Line.''

An acting veteran with a career that spans more than 30 years and covers over 40 movies for both television and the big screen, as well as appearances in over 80 television series; Robert Picardo is well known for his roles on China Beach as Doctor Dick Richards and on The Wonder Years as Coach Cutlip. A stage actor first, Mr. Picardo once shared the theatre stage with the great Jack Lemmon, Danny Aiello and Diane Keaton amongst others.

Nowadays, he is more widely known to Science-Fiction fans as the Doctor on Star Trek Voyager and as Richard Wolsey on the Stargate series.

It was a complete honor for me to interview Mr. Picardo during the 2009 Star Trek Convention, as I am a great fan of his, and also because the Doctor is one of my favourite Star Trek characters ever.

In the first part of this interview, I wanted to talk about what he liked the most as an actor, what his feelings were on the subject of being part of both Star Trek and Stargate, and how he found the Doctor’s voice as a writer in both the Star Trek: Voyager episode called ''Life Line'' and in his very funny book: The Hologram’s Handbook.

Inside Trekker : You’ve had a very diverse career. You’ve acted in plays, movies, TV series – and you’ve also done some voice acting in animated movies and video games. Which medium do you like the most? What makes you the happiest?

RP: I think probably I’ve had the most fun working on stage. The actor is most in control when you’re working live. Even though you develop your performance under the supervision of a director, every night you are responsible for recreating your performance; so that, I think, is really the most exciting, especially for someone who started as a stage actor. However, it’s a great joy to work in all media and I love doing what I’m doing, which is everything. I like to do theatre work; I like to work on film and television, and I also like to do animation, as well. They all have different challenges and their different rewards. So I like it all. It’s good to be busy!

IT: You’ve been in two of the biggest and longest-running Sci-Fi franchises of all time – as the Doctor on Star Trek [Voyager] and Richard Woolsey on Stargate. How do you feel about being part of two huge franchises?

RP: I am proud to be the only actor who’s played a starring role in both of the major franchises. I am happy that the characters were distinct and different, and I’m really particularly happy that the Stargate fans accepted me – not only as a different character, if they were familiar with my work on Star Trek, but that they also grew to accept me as a leader. Because my character was pretty much introduced as a bad guy… or you thought he was a bad guy, then it turned out he was a just an obnoxious guy who meant well… and then he slowly, you know, they gave him some comic foibles and all that, but he was never meant to be a leader. He was someone who evaluated the leadership of others. He was like a think-tank person or a briefing room person who was all theory but no execution. [laughs] ''Here’s what you should have done.'' So the fact that the audience grew to accept me as a leader, I was proud of, because that was a difficult transition, I think, to take the character through.

IT: And you were a great leader. I loved you, actually.

RP: Thank you! Well, I’m happy to hear that because he’s not by nature a brave individual. We had established that. Also, he’s not very much of a people person; he doesn’t have very good interpersonal skills. He had to learn an awful lot, but mostly he had to learn to trust his senior officers. And he had to trust his own instincts and willingness to put the rulebook down and go with his gut, which was the hardest thing, I think, for him to do because he’s a very intellectual person.

IT: You have a writing credit on a season 6 episode (of Star Trek Voyager) called ''Life Line'', and you wrote The Hologram’s Handbook. How hard or easy was it for you to write that book in the Doctor’s voice?

RP: [Laughs] Well, I don’t have the discipline to sit down really to write scripts or to write a long-form book. But I loved playing that character and I missed him as the show was ending and that’s one of the reasons why I had the idea. But also, I thought of funny situations and ideas that we had never dealt with on the series. It really came out of the episode ''Message in a Bottle'' where I’m bragging to Andy Dick’s character, EMH Mark II, that I’ve had sexual experiences and I said to the writers: When did I have them? [laughs] When did it? How did this happen? The audience saw me first activated on Voyager and then they’ve been keeping in touch with me every week. When did all this stuff happen? No one had any answers for me, so I went and decided to write my own back story to different things that had come up on the show that I wanted to know [laughs], you know, what the background was. So it started just as humorous anecdotes.
And then I also have always been amused by all the psychology self-help books that are at supermarket checkout counters and all that. So it’s really a satire of the self-help book. It’s a ''if you’re smarter than everyone else that you have to work with, it’s how to get along with inferiors.'' So it was mostly just for fun. And my friend Jeff Yagher, who’s a wonderful actor and sculptor and cartoonist, he did the cartoons for the book. And we had been working together – he was guest starring on Voyager – and the idea developed for us to do something together, so he would do the art for the book and I would write the chapters. So that was also a fun way to collaborate with him and help him pay for his wedding.

IT: I read that [The Hologram’s Handbook]. It was a great book. I enjoyed it very much, and I even got the audio book

RP: Thank you! The audio book – it’s fun to hear me doing it, I think, because, you know, you get to hear the old windbag himself again if you miss him.

IT: Yes, I do miss him.

RP: Thank you! About the episode, one of my favourite plays is I Never Sang for My Father, so I thought it would be interesting to sort of borrow the structure of that play. It’s all about the disappointments from both directions – parents toward children and children toward parents. Parents, you know, ''why aren’t you what I’d hoped you’d be?'' And children’s point of view is ''why can’t you accept me for what I am, and why don’t you love me as I am, and look at what I can do and look what my strengths are?'' So, it was basically a father-child drama adapted for a programmer and a hologram.

The interview continues in part 2.

2009 Star Trek Convention Breakfast: Voyager Saturday

The Voyager cast arriving at the breakfast function: Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips and Roxann Dawson

A feature of the Star Trek Las Vegas Convention is to offer the fans a chance to have breakfast with their favourite actors. And so I bought my tickets to attend a breakfast with the Voyager cast on Saturday morning and one with Zachary Quinto, Jacob Kogan and Sabrina Scharf on the Sunday breakfast.

Never having gone to one of these events before I had no idea what to expect. Walking into this big reception room, a dozen white linen draped round tables awaited us. Included of course was a delicious breakfast, and the food was much better than I expected.

Breakfast started at 8h45, and the actors were scheduled to join us at 9h00. So it gave us a good fifteen minutes to eat and be done with it before they showed up. I originally thought that the actors would actually eat with us. But it was certainly better this way.

On the Saturday morning breakfast, three actors from the Voyager cast joined us: Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo and Roxann Dawson. Robert Beltran was originally scheduled to appear at the convention and the breakfast but it seems that a family emergency kept him away.
This is how the thing worked: Each actor spends about 5-7 minutes at one table, chatting up the guests, then leaves for another table when the time is up (a handler follows each of them to keep things running smoothly).

First at our table was Ethan Phillips who was completely charming, jovial and fun. When he learned that I was French-speaking, he quickly proceeded to chat me up a bit in the language of Molière. It was great fun. Roxann Dawson was the next one to join us and I was completely taken aback by how beautiful this woman was. At 50, she doesn’t look a day older than 35. I want to be her desperately. She was funny and friendly to everyone. Last but not the least, came Robert Picardo, who was charming and sweet to everyone, talking about something he holds dear to his heart: the charity auction for Habitat for Humanity that he was holding the following evening.

It was a very pleasing experience and was, as in everything, too short. I was thus even more looking forward to the Sunday breakfast I was having the next day.

2009 Star Trek Convention Saturday: Voyager Panel

Picture 1: Robert Picardo, Roxann Dawson, Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ laughing with the audience

Picture 2: Robert Picardo and Roxann Dawson concentrating on a fan's question

Picture 3: Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ

Picture 4: Roxann and Ethan

Picture 5: Robert Picardo talking to the audience

Saturday was the day of the Star Trek Voyager Panel. Voyager is my favourite series along with The Next Generation and so it was with trepidation that I was looking forward to this one.
On this beautiful afternoon, in a theatre full of expecting fans, walked on stage Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (the Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), and the beautiful Roxann Dawson (B’Elanna Torres). It was not long after everyone was seated that jokes were darting all over the stage. The Voyager actors, friends to be sure, were having a field day and much like the Enterprise Panel they were hysterical

The fun started immediately with a conversation about wardrobe. Robert Picardo told the audience that the hat he was wearing served the purpose of cutting the glare from his head. Then the discussion moved on to Tim Russ’s choice of clothes with a suggestion that he may or may not be wearing sweatpants. But then, Picardo added that Russ spent most of his time on set in his bathrobe.

Ethan Phillips later joked that while on Voyager, he had both acting and janitorial roles on the set, to which Robert Picardo again dryly replied that his role was to wrangle and manage Ethan on set – to the amusement of the actors and their equally rapt audience. At one point, Tim Russ declared ''you thought seven years in the Delta Quadrant was bad, try working with these guys for years.'' To which Ethan Phillips replied ''try working with Tim after a three bean quiche,'' and Robert Picardo to add ''Tim Russ, the man, the myth, the methane.'' By then, the audience was just holding their sides with laughter.

During the panel, Robert Picardo recalled that there was, at one point, an idea to bring DeForest Kelley to the show. He had proposed that the Doctor would need to consult the medical database and ask Bones a question concerning medical ethics. However, this scene was never filmed because of Kelley’s health problems. Robert Picardo then said that he later met DeForest Kelley at one time after being on stage at the Creation convention in California, and recalled that Kelley had quipped to him ''I'm a doctor, not a hologram.''

Roxann Dawson shared her thoughts about working on Voyager while pregnant on and off the show (she was pregnant in season 6 but they hid it and then they made her character pregnant in season 7) so for two years we didn’t see her figure. She and Tim Russ also shared in the notion that they hated directing and acting at the same time, which they did in certain episodes. They both agreed that it was better to concentrate on one task at a time.

On working on Stargate Atlantis, Robert Picardo said that it was easier to ad-lib on he newer franchise but not on Star Trek. Also, that he was a secret agent brought in by the other side to take down the show. It was very funny.

One person asked a question concerning the destruction of Vulcan in the newest Star Trek movie. Tim Russ first replied that he was glad to have gotten a weekend pass to get off the planet (laughter from the audience) and then Ethan Phillips exclaimed that he was tired to hear about Vulcan: ''What about Talax?!'' he quipped. The crowd was very amused at this and the comment drew big laughs.

About their favourite Kate Mulgrew recollections, Tim Russ told a completely hysterical story that took place during the filming of Flashback. Tossing some debris from the set, Kate Mulgrew warned Russ not to hit her with it. After thinking about it, he did, and when he got back to his trailer all his clothes were gone. Then, in retaliation, Tim Russ posted pictures of his bare behind all over Kate Mulgrew’s trailer but finally they made peace. At almost the same moment both Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo indicated to the audience that these pictures were now for sale in the Vendor’s room. It was priceless. Then Robert Picardo told a more bittersweet story when he recalled that on the very last day of shooting for pick-up shots, Kate Mulgrew was there and they were literally taking down the set while filming. When they called the very last shot, Robert happened to stick his head there (he claims he was probably stealing pieces from the set and that made everyone roar with laughter) and Kate started crying and hugged him.

When the panel ended, there was a long standing ovation in the packed theatre. The actors were obviously delighted at this very warm reception and stood up in salutation. It was clear that many of the audience members were Voyager fans who totally loved them, and I was one of them.

2009 Star Trek Convention Friday: House Call

Picture 1: Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo doing the reading for House Call

Picture 2: DS9's Armin Shimmerman, at the foot of the stage, showed up mid-presentation to encourage the boys

Picture 3: Ethan Phillips doing his Solo reading while Robert Picardo is concentrating on the lines

Picture 4: The Doctor and Neelix in the Delta Quadrant

Picture 5: A lovely presentation after the play where Robert sang and Ethan played the saxophone

One of the biggest highlights of my Friday, during the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention at the Hilton, was to go and see House Call in the DeForest Kelley Theatre. This 45-minute one-act two-character hysterical play, co-written by Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, and Ted Kopulos, tells the audience about what happened to the Voyager Crew after their return to the Alpha Quadrant.

Told by the Doctor, played by the ever wonderful Robert Picardo, and by Neelix, played by the incredible Ethan Phillips, the play opens with the Doctor as he is preparing himself to go on a date with Seven of Nine in a very funny scene where he is applying too much of a perfume preparation with the computer’s help. He is then disrupted by a communication coming from his former Voyager comrade, Mister Neelix, back in the Delta Quadrant.

Following a lively and hysterical conversation between the two characters, the audience discovers what the members of the Voyager crew are now doing since coming home. We learn, for example, that Kathryn Janeway is now an Admiral but that she is still in command of her own ship, and we also learn that the Doctor is now teaching and has already gone on a date with Seven before (in a very hilarious retelling). However, the light-hearted reunion turns into something a bit more serious - though never dramatic -when Neelix admits to the Doctor that he needs his help because his stepson is sick and that he is worried about him (something having to do with spots) since no one else seems to be able to do anything to help. At which time, the Doctor offers to have his program be sent to the Delta Quadrant and to help personally. The two friends are reunited, the Doctor cures the young man, they make jokes when the Doctor claims he has dreamed he was named Joe (the Doctor’s indecision to chose a name has been a constant on the show and we learned, in the last episode, part of which takes place 20 years into the future, that he has finally chosen the very mundane name Joe), they burst into two songs from Man of La Mancha and then the Doctor returns to the Alpha Quadrant.

Both Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo were in fine form, and the dialogue was witty and true to the tone and personality of each of the two characters. It was wonderful to see the both of them slip so easily back into characters that they have lived with and we have known for over 20 years. While I expected them to be fully dressed and made up as their Voyager characters (I had never seen the play before), the presentation was more low-key and closer in style to a play-reading. They both stood at a lectern and read their parts from there, with Robert Picardo at one point going over to Ethan Phillips’ side in a simulation of his arrival to the Delta Quadrant, complete with voice-made sound effects to the utter delight of the audience.

The play was hilarious and the audience appeared completely delighted by the experience. The easy banter between both Robert Picardo and Ethan Phillips was a source of much fun for the fans who clearly adore them and the rapport and evident friendship between the two actors provided some of the highlights of the show. At one point, Ethan started rambling at his lectern and Bob had to tell him to stop it. Believe me, it was very funny, and they went at it on and off during the run of the play. It was glorious. When House Call ended the audience rose to their feet and warmly applauded the two men to show their appreciation.

A small gem, I wish House Call would be filmed so that everyone could get to enjoy it. What I will remember the most, beside the amazing performances, is that the fans had fun, the actors were wonderful and funny, and I believe the play was a success all around. If you ever get to a Star Trek convention and House Call is being played, you have to see it, believe me, you wont regret it.