This Writer Wrote

A lawyer by trade, he had started acting at the same time that he started pursuing his law degree. “In preparing for law school,” John explained, “I had read that acting classes were a great way to prepare to be a trial court litigator and I thought I was going to spend my days in a courtroom. So I took some acting classes. My first one was at the University of Virginia drama program. I just fell in love with it and thought ‘wow, this is great.’” This new interest wasn’t something that he had explored before and it led to him wrestling with whether or not he should change majors and pursue a Fine Arts degree.

“I decided to stick with the law and see how that played out.” Still, the acting bug wouldn’t be denied, for in law school, he gravitated toward the classes that required presentation skills. He found himself taking classes such as trial advocacy and negotiations – the type of classes, which in his words were classes “where you really need to perform.” And so he had to admit, the bug that bit him wouldn’t let go.

Although he did go into legal practice, the acting bug was still there. “It wasn’t until maybe three years ago that I decided that okay, I still have this interest and I really want to do something with it. So I started pursuing it back East and that culminated into a lot of different things and ultimately led me out here to the West Coast.” Where he’s been residing for the last month, actively pursuing his acting career.

According to John, there is no dearth of projects filming in the DC area, although many of them are docudramas. Thus, he did a docudrama for the History Channel and one for National Geographic. “In Baltimore, which is actually the city I grew up in, HBO films The Wire,” he told me, “so I got cast in an episode of The Wire, which was actually the season finale of season 3.”

Thus the discovery of the missing helmsman came at a fortuitous time, because John Lim was exploring acting again. “I contacted a couple of the producers and whoever was in charge of casting at the time and just expressed my interest. I didn’t expect to hear anything back. I didn’t know what to expect, but maybe it was the same day I got an email response. I traded emails with someone who, I guess, was working on New Voyages in their PR team and then it was maybe a couple of months later that I actually got a call out of the blue from James Cawley (the man behind New Voyages, the actor who plays James T Kirk).”

Cawley’s crew had just finished filming the second episode, “In Harm’s Way,” and they weren’t quite sure what they were going to do for episode three, but he invited John to come and take a look at the sets. “I had no idea where this was filming, mind you.” When he was told New York, he told them that he loved New York City and would just hop on over on the Metro. “No, no, no,” they told him, “you’ve actually got to go a little farther north.” And the next thing John knew, he was on this ten-hour road trip, driving up to the middle of nowhere.

“I’m thinking, wait, this can’t be right, but lo and behold, I met James in way, way upstate New York where there is absolutely no cell phone reception and I’m not even sure they have electricity, no I’m just kidding.” (Note: for a flavor of the culture shock many of us went through filming in this beautiful, but rural area of upstate New York, see my personal account in the October 2006 archive of http://dannygirlpaceyjack.blogspot.com/)

Once Cawley took John on a tour of the set, John Lim, aka the new Sulu, was hooked. “I was blown away by the amount of detail and attention that they had put into the sets,” he admitted. “From that point on, I think I was just introduced as part of the cast and so, as the story goes, I like to say, I pretty much cast myself in this role.”

For which he has to thank a friend of his for alerting him to the fact that people were making Star Trek Internet films. Although he grew up watching the original Star Trek series and some of the movies, as well as Star Wars and other Sci Fi, he doesn’t consider himself a die-hard Star Trek fan. For him, it was just part of his childhood experience.

And yet, an incident in his college years seems to have been a harbinger of what was to come. “When I was in college, that was about the time that George had published his autobiography. I had actually read his autobiography and he was doing a book signing at the campus bookstore. I ran down with my copy of his autobiography to get him to sign it and he had just left. I could see him right off in the distance.” Disappointed, all John could think was, “Aw shoot, I just missed my chance to meet George Takei. Will I ever get a chance to meet the guy?”

A typical response for any thwarted fan, but John had confidence that some day he would get that chance again and would meet his hero. “Next thing you know I actually get to work with him on a Star Trek episode which is the most surreal, bizarre thing…. I never would have imagined it in a million years.”

I asked him what it was about Sulu that made him run across campus, chasing an autograph. “I loved the fact that Sulu was this patient hero on a show and he wasn’t a stereotype, he didn’t speak with a stereotypical accent. Sulu is a character that people admire, people look up to.” Reading the autobiography gave John an appreciation for what George contributed to the character. “There’s an episode where you see the swashbuckler in Sulu come out and he’s with a fencing sword. There’s a story where they originally wrote in the script that he would have a samurai sword, which is what typically you would have expected to see and maybe even today you would see on TV with an Asian character, but he insisted on doing something different and instead of a samurai sword, it’s a fencing foil. And that defines so much of the character, and he just continued to do that. He continued to build on his character and you see this progression of this calm, cool, collected helmsman who also has this kind of fire and that translates and evolves into the movies where we just see him naturally leading off to being a captain of his own ship.”

“World Enough and Time” was an idea award-winning writer Michael Reaves pitched to Paramount thirty years ago as a kind of “City on the Edge of Forever” for Sulu, meaning that Sulu is faced with the decision of whether to give up someone who means everything to him to make the universe right again. Had Star Trek Phase II gone to series, they would have aged George Takei thirty years for his role as “Warrior Sulu” in this. But instead, Paramount scrapped the idea of a second series and went movies instead. This decision made it possible for Takei to now, thirty years later, play the older Sulu who has to make the gut-wrenching, heart-moving decisions, while John Lim plays the Sulu of the Enterprise in its first five-year mission.

So of course I had to ask John how it was to play the iconic role with the man who had created it? Was it daunting? “Well, that’s an interesting question. When I initially started with New Voyages, I had no idea the scope of where this was going to go…. I thought it would be a great experience as an actor. Then shortly after I joined the cast – or maybe a couple of months — was when the announcement came that the next script was going to involve Walter Koenig as Chekov and they were going to cast a new Chekov and the script was being written by DC Fontana, and then all of a sudden everything changed. I think the stakes changed. I think the level of production changed.”

Being a part of that episode, which John doesn’t even like to call a fan film, because he thinks it takes away from its well-earned professionalism and quality (“To Serve All My Days” has garnered a nomination for a Sci Fi Genre award), taught him much which he applied to later working with Takei, even though Sulu didn’t have a huge role in the Chekov-featured episode. “When I found out that George was actually going to guest star in the next episode after “To Serve All My Days,” I guess there was definitely that ‘wow’ surreal aspect, that ‘I can’t believe this, I’m actually gonna be in an episode working with George,’ but having watched Andy (Bray, young Chekov) and how he performed with Walter, and just being a part of that, there’s a sense of professionalism that you come to respect in this production and yes, there are moments when you kinda get star-struck, but at the same time you realize there’s a lot of passion in this. And just having worked with Andy and Julienne (Irons, young Uhura) and some of the other cast members and seeing how much they put into this, you step outside of that star struck mode and you realize that we’re here to do a production. We’re gonna give our hundred and ten percent.”

As a result, Takei guest starring in an episode said to John, “Okay, here is my chance to really put in a hundred and twenty percent. So I… yes it was daunting, yes, in a sense, it was intimidating, but actually having watched Andy and how well he performed with Walter, I thought of it as an incredible opportunity. I saw it as an opportunity to take this to the next level, and see how far we can push it.”

The intimidation factor was further reduced by John meeting George a couple of months before shooting started. “I came out to LA and we did some makeup tests, we did some script reads, we auditioned actresses for one of the other roles and I got to read with George and actually do an improv exercise with him.”

Even better, John got to know George not only as an actor, but also as a human being. “He’s one of the kindest, gentlest, generous people I’ve ever met and just getting to know him as a person and getting to talk to him, you see more than this is a famous guy who played Sulu. I mean, this is someone who has had an incredible career, continues to have an incredible career and has had an amazing life in politics, doing so many different things, and you come to respect that. So when you step on the set, and, getting back to your question, and you are in costume and you see George and he’s the consummate professional, all you want to do is give your best and that’s all you do. Yes, there’s that moment of awe, but then, you get into character and give the best performance you can and hope that resonates with the audience.”

John fully acknowledges that he’s stepping into an iconic role. “We know it is a huge responsibility, but this is what we signed up to do and I think there is a sense of fearlessness and maybe even audacity in taking that on. We have detractors as well as fans, but that’s what it takes. This is a tough industry. It’s a tough business. And this is coming from someone who comes from another tough industry. Although I will say that acting is ten times harder than breaking into the legal profession. And working with these two (note: Andy Bray and Julienne Irons were also present during this interview) and working with the professionals, I’ve been nothing but inspired.”

Without a doubt, part of the drive people felt to get the job done and get it done right came from George Takei himself. “George definitely inspires everyone around him,” John informed me. The energy and positive attitude that radiated from Takei inspired them to be troopers. “’Cause he had to put up with it as much as we did, if not more. Late nights. Makeup for five hours. Very heavy costume. Shooting at 5am. It’s very easy to forget that he’s in his seventies. But he is there and he’s got the energy of a twenty-year old. He’s outpacing a lot of us who are in our twenties and thirties. So, he just inspires us all to put up with whatever we have to and just get the job done.”

No interview is complete without asking an actor to share with us his favorite moment and especially one that made him laugh from either during shooting or behind the scenes. John wasn’t sure if he had a funny moment to share. “I do have one of those, ‘wow, this is surreal’ moments. I have two actually. During “To Serve All My Days” I drove Andy and Walter to the set and Walter is sitting to my right in the passenger seat and Andy is sitting in the back, and I’m just thinking, ‘we’re in the middle of upstate New York in the middle of nowhere and there’s a Sulu driving two Chekovs to the set.’ And then about a year later, we were filming some scenes for “World Enough and Time” in Chatsworth (California) and they were filming George’s scene. I remember Andy and I had come out to visit. I had to shoot some stuff, but it was mostly George they were filming. And then during one of the breaks, it was Andy, myself, and George walking down the hall, and I’m thinking ‘now we have one Chekov and two Sulus.’ Bizarre stuff like that hits you in the moment.”

As for a favorite moment, John claims to have far too many. “In terms of acting, the final scene that I got to do was… draining, it was very emotional, it was a moment that I wasn’t sure I could pull off. We had actually gotten the script several months before, so that was probably the scene I had been looking at and preparing for the most. And I think it was probably ten minutes before we shot that I found the place I needed to go to do that scene.

“But I have so many favorite moments from the shoot. Even when we weren’t in front of the camera, just being able to hang out with George, being able to talk with him about acting and different things, spending time with Andy and Jules… In fact there’s one evening that we were all kind of exhausted and stressed out so we actually took a road trip and we went out to Vermont for hamburgers. It was a lot of fun because when you are shooting up in Port Henry, you are surrounded by nature and that part is beautiful, but you also have to adjust to the fact that there’s very little in terms of civilization and cell phone reception.

“We went on a whim – we weren’t shooting that evening – our characters weren’t shooting that evening so we took this road trip and drove to Vermont. It’s a beautiful state, nothing to take away from it. But our reaction when we crossed the state border, we were literally like, not to make a pun, we were like on another planet. Our cell phones started blowing up with messages and whoa, look at the bright lights, the buildings. And I think at the end of the day, those are a lot of the things you take away with you. Those family moments that you have. As actors, we all had wonderful moments. Like Julienne had a wonderful scene with George. Andy had some incredible moments with Walter in “To Serve All My Days.” So I mean, there are plenty of acting moments, but really a lot of the memories that we talk about, that we joke about, are the ones we shared off camera.”

With so many memories and so much enthusiasm, I wondered if John has been able to keep in touch with George Takei since we shot the episode last fall. “Yeah, absolutely. Just getting to work with George was amazing enough, but… because I’m interested in acting, and pursuing it now much more aggressively, George has been fantastic, providing a lot of guidance. We do keep in touch. He’s extraordinarily busy, he’s just gotten this huge, huge revival of sorts, with Heroes and all his other work, but yeah, he still manages to keep in touch. We touch base every now and then, talk about what we’re working on and he gives me advice from time to time, so it’s fantastic.”

With “World Enough and Time” essentially behind him, except for walking the red carpet on Thursday, August 23, 2007, it was time to talk about the future and what we might see him in next. “Last thing I shot, a couple of months ago, was a commercial back East for Under Armour Sportswear – that’ll be airing next fall on ESPN. Andy and I just filmed a comical, musical video short, which is actually a tribute to one of our fellow castmates, but I’ll leave that as a surprise. I also just had a last minute audition last night for what might be a pilot for a Office-like comedy series.” He also admits to hoping to find a way to get to JJ Abrams to “see if there’s any way we can leverage what we’ve done in New Voyages into roles in the upcoming Star Trek film.” And finally there is the film, which he is working on with Julienne Irons and Andy Bray. “It’s a really funny project – I think it’s going to show a different side of us as actors. It’s something that the three of us collaborated on and really believe in.”

John’s final words were of thanks to the fans for their support: “Thank you for supporting us and remember our “World Enough and Time” premiere is on the 23rd so you can register at newvoyages.com. Also remember that “To Serve All My Days” has been nominated for a Sci Fi Genre Award, which is amazing, and you can keep voting until the 25th… you can vote once a day on their website until the 25th and we’re up against some really, really incredible competition.”

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Note: Keep your eyes open for the interview with Julienne Irons who plays Uhura. It will be appearing soon on “This Writer Wrote” at:
http://gollysunshine.wordpress.com/