Christina Moses Touched Our Hearts with Love and Pain As Sulu’s Daughter May 1, 2009
Posted by gollysunshine in Christina Moses, Entertainment, George Takei, Internet Films, Star Trek, Star Trek: New Voyages, Star Trek: Phase II, World Enough and Time episode.add a comment
Alana and Sulu photo courtesy of Marc Scott Zicree
Alana on transporter photo courtesy of Marc Scott Zicree
Christina Moses headshot courtesy of Christina Moses
As we wait for the release of the new Star Trek movie from Paramount, featuring new young actors playing our beloved characters, it is a good time to celebrate the 40 some years that fans have kept the dream of the Star Trek Universe alive through their fanzines, fan clubs, and now Internet-based, live-action, filmed episodes. So much so that Paramount Studios has been able to cash in on the hunger for new Star Trek stories for decades and is now bringing out a new take on the Original Star Trek series which started everything. (And I’m calling it a new take because obviously I haven’t seen the new movie yet, but to my way of thinking, it was pretty obvious in that first episode of Original Star Trek back in the late ‘60s that Spock and Kirk did not know each other before they met as seasoned adults on the Enterprise — any movie that says they did is a new take on the subject matter.)
I am convinced that part of the reason that Paramount and the new kids on the block have decided they could re-imagine the series that has been with us for so long is because they saw that millions of fans around the world were willing to watch other actors (or fans) play their favorite characters in new, fan-written and fan-produced episodes presented on the Internet – the most successful venture being Star Trek: New Voyages or as it is now called, Star Trek: Phase II (http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/).
Probably the most widely-acclaimed and nominated-for-Hugo-and-Nebula-awards episode of Star Trek: New Voyages has been “World Enough and Time” in which George Takei reprises his iconic role of Sulu. It has been described as the “City on the Edge of Forever” for Sulu. Just as Kirk had to decide between the love of his life and the universe as it should be in “City…” so does Sulu have to decide in WEAT between the daughter he has raised from birth to young adulthood or his Enterprise ship and crewmates, due to a freak accident which causes him to live 30 years on a planet in 30 seconds aboard ship.
It is a heart-wrenching dilemma that is made even more heartbreaking by the incredibly touching and vulnerable performance of Christina Moses as Sulu’s daughter, Alana – an innocent beauty whose entire universe was her parents and the stories her father told her about his life aboard the Enterprise. At the premiere, sobs were heard in the audience for the decisions and sacrifices both Sulu and Alana make. In fact, a few grown men who swore they never cry over movies admitted to tears and sobs over this one.
Because the role of Alana is so pivotal to the episode, director Marc Scott Zicree looked for an already experienced actress to play her, rather than one of the less experienced fan-bred actors who were responsible for the project’s existence. With both parents accomplished actors, Christina grew up in the business. Her father, Tom Moses, has taught acting in Long Beach, CA in addition to being a writer, director, and actor.
Yet, despite growing up in the business, Christina claims to have had no early-on interest in following in her parents’ footsteps. “My father used to take me around to auditions when I was really young and I really didn’t like it,” she admits. In fact, she attributes her childhood shyness as a reason why she wasn’t interested in Hollywood. “Any desire that I have had or would have had would definitely be supported,” Christina explains about the parental attitude surrounding her youthful choices. “I mean if there was something I wanted to do at a young age it would have been okay to do. Some really important people were very interested in me and supposedly, I’m one of the best cold readers in town, but again, I don’t know. I just wasn’t interested. It wasn’t until Junior High where I discovered theater in school that I fell in love with it.”
Asked why her interest was piqued then, she indicates that she came to view acting “as just another art form, like painting.” To her, it was just another way to express herself, another way to explore her inner being and life in general. “And so I started doing it throughout junior high and in high school and when I went to Santa Cruz College, I did it there.”
But since acting wasn’t yet something she wanted to do professionally, she stopped performing when she first moved to New York. Nevertheless, the call of the theater was too strong for her to resist so she ended up doing a lot of stage work in New York. Through friends involved in film noir and film festivals, she ended up doing little independent shorts in New York and San Francisco. Hence, WEAT represented her first foray into episodic or longer formats. “This is the first, well, it’s not a feature but it’s the longest film that I’ve ever done. You know, professionally, up to that point.”
As for Star Trek itself, Christina admits to not being a Star Trek fan before discovering this role. “I remember it being on as a kid,” she says, “because my dad was a fan, is a fan. It was on in the background and I went to see some of the movies with him, but no, I really didn’t understand the Star Trek phenomenon until I got on set and started asking people what is it – why is it that it has such a huge following.”
Asked what insight she gained, Moses explains, “First of all, I learned that it is just… it’s like a home for a lot of people. The things he [Roddenberry] was doing… the topics that he was exploring at the time were very controversial and revolutionary. I mean I remember seeing an episode where Kirk – Captain Kirk — he gets in trouble for something and he’s brought before the court and on the panel there was a woman, there’s an Indian male, there’s a black male, there’s a white male, and for the sixties, that’s a huge payoff for people of color and a female to be people in power.”
“Beautiful,” is how Christina describes what Roddenberry did, looking at Star Trek from a political and holistic humanitarian point of view, especially considering the number of people exposed to his vision. For the era, she thinks that “the open representation of society is awesome so I can see how people can find a place for themselves there.” What strikes her is not just that Star Trek was “revolutionary with technology back then” but the incredible “imagination” it had of what the future could be like. “It was,” she ventures, “a huge game of pretend and people could really explore and play in it in a way that they couldn’t in this society. I understand the camaraderie. And it holds up today, very much so, in the same way that it did back then.”
Since Christina admits to viewing everything from a political context, the fact that Star Trek broke down barriers is one of its most important and enduring attributes to her. “If that’s where they are coming from,” she says of Star Trek fans, “in that way I’m a fan, too. Definitely.”
One would think that the politically-minded Christina would have been a lot more aware of Star Trek’s history of breaking down barriers while growing up than she reveals. After all, she is a child of a white woman and a black man — one who was/is a long-time fan of the show which featured the first ‘interracial kiss’ at a time when that was just not done. Yet, when I mentioned that to her, Christina’s first reaction was, “Between who?” Upon being told between Uhura and Kirk, she quipped, “They should get a statue just for that alone.”
Obviously, even though her parents were doing something that was in itself revolutionary for the time period, young Christina didn’t gain any special awareness from her dad of the impact Nichelle’s Uhura had on the image of black women or any of the other politics that touched original Star Trek fans. “Both of my parents aren’t very political,” she explains. “That is more me. I mean if they are, it’s more environmentally – more living and embracing the roles that I was seeing more politically.
“The marriage for my mother was more that marrying a black man was so beautiful,” she elaborates. “I mean, she was also in love with him, but because it was also more proof of breaking down race barriers. She would tell this to me now, that that was how she thought back then, but it wasn’t a political standpoint. For her, it’s more about love and humanity. I just interpret everything theoretically and politically because that’s the way I view the world.”
So if this Star Trek project wasn’t a chance to work on a long-loved or long-admired show, how did she become involved? “Through the grapevine, actually,” she admits. “A friend of a friend, who’s friends with Marc and Elaine, put the word out that one of the actors had dropped out and they were looking. I took a chance as I needed a job. I emailed and they called me in and I auditioned and got the part, two days later. Or a day later. That’s how.”
Asked what attracted her to the role, Moses answers that “…the concept is awesome — what’s 30 seconds to one person is 30 years to another. I like the idea of playing with manipulating time and space and perception. So conceptually, that is really cool. I would love for it to be a feature movie and see what happens on the planet Taliban and that’s cool.”
Nobody can deny that Alana is a very meaty role, but Christina especially liked the idea that Alana was “available” to everything that occurred around her and “grateful” for her experiences. “I think Alana was a reflection of everyone around her,” Christina Moses elaborates on how she saw the character. “She’s provided them a mirror for them to really see themselves – to see the parts of themselves that they let go of or didn’t tap into – what they desire.”
In what way, I wanted to know. “In terms of anything,” Christina explained. “Love — unconditional and so available. Being able to look at everything with so much wonder and appreciation. I think that’s what she reflected back to them. It’s just about them and their needs and being who they are. Spock got to see himself in just the questions Alana was asking him. Which was for her, too. How can she exist, being so different? And the fact that by giving up your future for the good of other people. Life is much bigger than you. He got to be reminded of who he was in Alana, all the goodness he could bring. All of them – does that make any sense?”
It is also undeniable that Alana’s ethereal and innocent beauty is part of the audience’s attraction and bonding to her. This had to be a challenge for any actress to bring across. “How I approached it was… uhm… well… I just read the script a million times, over and over. I would just pieced together what her life was like by what George was saying – my father as the life-giver and I just pretended to live there in my head.”
Moses also credits Kirk and Spock with helping with her characterization as she would imagine going through and living what they were saying to her, like putting together a puzzle. “And then she just came out.”
But Christina denies that she deliberately imagined an innocent Alana. “I can’t say, as me, ‘Be childlike or be innocent and sweet.’ Because if you are trying to be acting, rather than trying your best to just live it, it doesn’t work. Acting is pretending.”
It works “because we’re all kids or we can be,” she says. “We know how to use our imaginations to play like we did when we were kids.”
Yet, it couldn’t have been easy to portray a character so constrained as Alana stuck in a stasis chamber, unable to touch, especially when the very stasis chamber was all special effects added later.
“I just winged it,” Moses says of that particular challenge. “Yeah, that was part of the frustration of what she’s going through. There was that lingering, ‘Okay, I’m really not here. There’s a possibility that I may be on this planet alone, forever,’ which was part of her circumstances. Circumstances that she couldn’t exist outside of the stasis chamber and that whenever they came up to her, she couldn’t touch anything for real. She wasn’t real quote unquote in this world. So yeah, that was part of it.”
Still, it had to be difficult to not have the physical freedom to do or touch things on this set that she might normally want to layer in. For example, one of my favorite scenes is where she and Kirk are walking down a corridor and Alana twirls and dances because she is just so happy to be moving through the magical place of her father’s stories. In fact, I believe that Alana’s pure delight and innocent wonder in this scene brings out the best in Cawley’s performance as Kirk.
“I would try to imagine what it would look like,” Christina says of that particular sequence, where she had to remain conscious that she couldn’t grab Kirk or touch the walls. “And not being very scifi-ish, I’d be like, what are they talking about? I just imagined the colors and not being substantial, whatever that would look like.”
In fact, Christina used this same approach to prepare for the intensely emotional scenes Alana had. “If you believe in anything, it’s real to you. So, that’s it, really. Pretending. Over and over again. Putting myself in her circumstance of my mother, my father, the planet… I could understand her wanting a normal life. If he had not told me all those stories, I wouldn’t have known anything about the world and the Enterprise. I may be a human being and have a general feeling of longing, I don’t know. You don’t know what you’re missing. So, I just believed in it. I believed in it, wholeheartedly. If you saw your dad die – or not die – if you knew you couldn’t be with your father anymore… whatever was important to you… you would probably be exceedingly sad. So as a human being, you know what it’s like to imagine or go through certain horrific circumstances.”
Unlike method actors who recall events in their lives to guide their performances, Christina doesn’t use her personal life to fuel her roles. “I don’t picture my father up there,” she asserts. “I didn’t picture anyone… I don’t have a loved one who has … I don’t use my personal life. But I’m a human being. I know what it would be like to lose someone. I know what it’s like to be hurt. So being a human being, I just imagined these circumstances over and over again until they become really really real for me.”
In other words, she just became Alana. “As much as I could,” Christina reasons. “I feel like there’s so much more room to grow. I mean, I look back on it now and think, oh god, give me the role now. Because I was so new and anxious over being new, but there’s always room to grow. Always. I don’t think there’s an endpoint. At all. Because one thing you complete opens the stage for new challenge, new growth. You’re always growing, hopefully.”
This is something she continues to explore under the guidance of her acting teacher, Harry Mastrogeorge. “That’s all we do, we just work on our imaginations … there’s no method to it. There’s no [actor] tricks. There’s no technique even, really it’s just practice. You know, like if I had to practice the violin every day, I have to practice working my imagination, it’s that kind of brick. ”
In other words, it’s just about using heart and imagination, not worrying about how one looks on camera. “My focus isn’t on how I look on camera, my focus isn’t how to indicate something or whether I’m wearing the right colors to make my eyes pop, it’s not about that. It’s more about pretending and being truthful as much as is possible.”
“It’s surprising that when you want a trick, want to co-op – okay, if I know I want to act for the director and I know he wants something from me, and it’s just naturally not there at the moment, if I think of my mom being like abducted or something, I’ll cry for you, right then and there. Sure, but to me that is cheating in a way, because it’s not the story, it’s not about me. Like I’m not playing Christina who’s playing this person. I’m a human being who’s playing… I’m now Alana. I’m going to try to let go of Christina as much as possible. Which I think is lifelong work. It takes a lot of work. When I see Meryl Streep, even if it’s in interviews, she plays… she doesn’t use her personal life, she uses her imagination when she plays. And we can see with Cate Blanchett, we can see with Judi Dench, they are not the same – they are definitely not the same. And you can see with Julie Roberts or Denzel Washington, who are great, they’re fun, they make you cry, they make you laugh, they’re highly believable, but you see them.”
“Awesome” is how Christine sums up being able to work with veteran actor, George Takei. “He’s one of the humblest, kindest people I’ve ever met, and he just radiates so much positivity and creativity. He really loves what he does, which makes it easy for us to surround him, and want to work with him, whether behind the scenes or in front of the camera. He’s so professional, honestly, in attitude – he’s like a beginner — and humble.”
Asked what Takei gave her to take with her as a young actor for the future, Moses replies “Technique. Just how he works.” That is partially because she considers herself a stage actress first and foremost. “I’m used to having to be bigger and more expressive,” she explains. “So I really had to take a lot of that out for film. So I’d just watch him, watch how he did things. He knows how to handle himself on film. I have no idea how to handle myself on film. I just do the things. Once as we kept shooting, I said to myself, I’m going to watch him and learn how to handle myself.” Hence, she credits the veteran actor with teaching her “how to be in front of the camera and maintain the life in the character and story.”
Although Christina did not experience the same ‘pinch me to see if I’m awake’ incredulity working with iconic characters and actors that longtime ST fans in the cast and crew did, she says she understands how they feel. “To be an Asian captain back then and now, it just goes along with everything that I said before, that you really have to appreciate who he is and who he was and what he means to Star Trek. To those people who are fans of an actor, that’s huge.”
The impact of Star Trek on the people around her wasn’t lost on her, especially for those who maybe weren’t the most popular kids in their school. “School’s hard. High School especially is horrible. Or can be. Maybe your whole life isn’t so good. You want to fit in. And it just speaks to humanity and everyone – it taps into a little bit of everybody. You’ve got this show where none of this matters whether you’re cool or not cool, whether you’re white or you’re black, whether you’re rich or poor – that’s not even, not even an issue at all. That’s huge.” And Spock became the embodiment of all that for “people who are labeled geeks, who are not cool, who are not sexy, who are not whatever….”
Christina’s greatest challenge was totally unforeseen: she became very ill. And considering how sick she was during filming, the performance she turned in was astonishing. “I had this huge fever. Chills every single day. I felt horrible. That was the biggest challenge. To stay present on the story and not on how I was feeling. I haven’t been that sick in a long time.” In between takes, Christina could be seen huddled in a borrowed winter jacket. Moses would do her scene and then return to the area cordoned off as a dressing room to rest.
In fact, Christina was so sick that she can’t remember much about shooting and is even surprised she made it through the 20 hours of filming on the last day. “I was just so sick that that’s what I remember. I didn’t really hang out much, behind the scenes because I just really wanted to stay in the story. I had to go lie down a lot and when I was gone, I’d just be imagining the story as much as possible. So I don’t even know a lot about what had happened. I remember laughing a lot. And people laughing as things went wrong, but what they are, I can’t recall.”
In fact, she was so tired and sick, she was almost unaware that she almost caught on fire when they were setting off explosive charges in the stasis chamber during her climatic scene. “I was really worn when we were practicing with the explosives at the end of the film. I don’t remember it too much. We were almost finished. Those were my last scenes. And they had to take the fire extinguisher and put it out. That was just cool.”
Moses loved working on the project. “People were so passionate about what was a pure passion project. People were so kind. They opened up their homes. They brought food. They made food. They ordered food. Everyone pitched in. Construction you know. Sets… people gave their time. People came from Australia. People drove and flew from California. That’s amazing.”
Working on this project also opened her eyes to how unique the whole Star Trek World is. “That other people were willing to go out of their way to help the vision. Some stayed only a few days. Some stayed for the duration. It [the location] wasn’t soundproof and we had to stop a lot. There’s a lot… we had to deal with. But we were all happy to work. And to be a part of something almost bigger than ourselves.”
Although Christina doesn’t have any particular favorite scenes that she shot, she says the people she worked with were the best part of the project. “They really shot some amazing things… scenes. That’s just pure passion and respect for everyone. I’m just really inspired when people just step up and do the work that needs to be done. And they collaborate.”
Since then, Christina has done some Internet commercials, an independent SAG horror film written and produced by Gordon Greene and directed by Sasha Crane, the nephew of Anna and Lee Strausberg, the Elevate Film Festival for Sound and Music, and a radio play (“Magic Time”) written and directed by Marc Scott and Elaine Zicree.
The horror film was shot in and around a castle sitting on a 5,000 acre ranch in Antelope Valley, CA. “And I don’t die. Oh, I shouldn’t say that,” she instantly corrects. With a smile, she adds, “I may die.”
“I had a blast,” Christina says, even though she never thought she’d do a slasher horror film. ”There is substance and heart in this film, but it is also a fun, thrilling slasher. It’s a movie within a movie. A group of actors have been cast in this film which tells the true story of what became an urban legend… very bad things happen to us as we are trying to recreate the true life events.
“This being a thriller, I had to scream my head off a lot! And run around a lot! Most of our scenes were shot outside. It was extremely dark, scary and freezing with winds I have never witnessed before, growing up in Los Angeles. Plus, my character was constricted to wearing a small dress, as all good thrillers require.
“Though we shot in April, we were smack dab in the middle of a desert with no mountains for protection against the wind, but, at the same time, it was incredible. So quiet and beautiful with nothing to scatter away the stars at night. The view in the daytime was endless, serene and absolutely gorgeous.”
Christina did all her own stunts. “Okay, that sounded a lot cooler than was meant! Mainly I had to run and fall, but they did have to teach me how to fall/faint and look real. I definitely accrued some bruises, but so worth it.”
What was most challenging on this project was allowing herself to be afraid and adjusting to the cold and hours. “We shot from sundown to sunup so you can imagine the chill and tiredness. The cast and crew were amazing! So talented and fun. We had a great time, downing monster after monster, Emergen C’s to stay awake, eating home cooked meals from the director’s family and friends who catered, dancing in our trailers, watching films… horror was among them, one of the “saw’s” I believe.”
For the film festival in which participants get 48 hours to make a film from start to finish, Christina worked behind the scenes. “I helped to produce a documentary and seven music videos for the festival. We focus on works that uplift… that elevate consciousness in some shape or form by choosing issues that are socially and globally relevant and important.”
Five short films, five documentaries, five music videos and five commercials were produced in this time frame with professional directors and actors.
“Everything is cast and crewed under the kick-off. And the director is pulled from the hat for the project.” From that moment, they have 48 hours to complete the project. Details can be found at elevatefilmfestival.com. “We premiered at the Kodak Theater and it is the first time the Kodak Theater ever had a film festival there. And it was huge. We got over 3,000 people.”
As a result, Moses has another passion besides acting: producing documentaries. Especially on subjects like kids getting involved in war. She’d like to uncover “…what causes our kids to pick up arms in the streets and form gangs. I mean, war can be… it’s not just your physical war…”
Christina Moses played Colleen in Magic Time, a radio play based on Marc Scott Zicree’s best-seller book of the same name, in which a cataclysmic event happens and all things technological or mechanical stop working and magic returns.
This is actually a subject that deserves its own article and I’ve written about this project elsewhere. If you want to learn of my participation in this project, check out http://dannygirlpaceyjack.blogspot.com/2008/12/magic-time-gives-crystal-another-first.html and its two preceding entries.
Finally, as an addendum, Christina Moses had her first pre-premiere screening of her first horror film on January 30, 2009 at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for industry professionals.
In Print and Available to You: CAT’s Contribution to Thrilling Wonder Stories Hits the Stands April 2, 2009
Posted by gollysunshine in George Takei, Internet Films, Star Trek, TV production, Thrilling Wonder Stories, World Enough and Time episode.2 comments
So many days it feels like you are beating your head against a brick wall or jumping at an impenetrable glass ceiling. So when something you do actually sees the light of day, it’s cause for celebration.
The other day I got an exciting package in the mail — my author copies for the article I wrote in THRILLING WONDER STORIES, volume 2. I was commissioned to write a behind the scenes history of the making of the “World Enough and Time” Internet Star Trek episode we made for Star Trek: New Voyages, which is now called Star Trek: Phase II.
On this blog, you have seen individual interviews I did of the actors after we finished filming this episode with a crew of half Hollywood professionals and half Star Trek fans from around the world. I still have the promised interviews with Christine Moses and Lia Johnson to put up (alas, real life took precedence and more time than I expected).
This book’s article is based on different interviews than the ones I put up on the Net when I was doing publicity for the Premiere of the streaming event. In this book is a perspective of the entire creation of the episode, so I interviewed a variety of participants, including GEORGE TAKEI.
It was great fun to do these interviews and great fun to write the article and I think you’ll have great fun reading it if you choose to go on the journey with me.
And to make it even better, I’m here in the company of accomplished and prestigious Science Fiction and Star Trek writers — many of whom I’ve read when I was younger. You can see me listed among them here on the back page, with a description of what I’ve written. For instance, Diane Duane… I loved reading her first original novel, Door into Fire, an entertaining book I’ve never forgotten — how neat is it to be in the company of someone who gave me hours of pleasure many years ago.
This is not the first thing I’ve had published, but it is a milestone for me anyway, because this is the first time, I’ve had something like this published. And how cool is it that it is available on Amazon where I buy so many of my own books and DVDs. Hmm, I wonder if I could do a search on my name there and come up with this book — probably not, since I’m just a contributor, not the editor, who is WINSTON ENGLE.
Restoring the fifties pulp fiction magazine to its former glory was Winston’s dream and he has succeeded admirably. This is his second volume and they are both books to be proud of. He did a great job with them and we should all applaud him for it.
If you want to take the journey behind the scenes of making this award-winning, Hugo-and-Nebula-nominated Star Trek episode with me, you can find it here at Amazon or here at Barnes and Noble. You can even find my name mentioned in the product descriptions at both sites. You can also visit the Official Website Winston has set up for his book. I haven’t had the opportunity to read the other contributions yet, but considering the heavy-hitters of science fiction that they are, I’m sure their stories are well worth reading. I know I look forward to delving into them.
If you do read my article, please come back and share your thoughts about it as well.
I Can’t Believe Elvis Recreated Star Trek April 3, 2008
Posted by gollysunshine in Entertainment, Internet Films, Star Trek, TV production, Walter Koenig.Tags: Barbara Luna, D.C. Fontana, Star Trek: New Voyages
3 comments
These words were uttered by Bob Nuchow, SSG Screening Series producer for the Fine Arts Theater, as he introduced the cast and crew of Star Trek New Voyages: “To Serve All My Days” for the Q and A portion of the LA red-carpet premiere of the Walter Koenig-starring episode’s “Special Edition” on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Several cast and crew from the original Star Trek series were in the audience, but the only ones whose names I can remember now are Walter Koenig, DC Fontana and Barbara Luna, who is in the picture below with Walter and his wife, Judy, and James Cawley.
The house was packed with Star Trek fans from the general public and the entertainment industry for this episode which Walter Koenig starred in. This also was the episode where the special effects looked so good to yours truly that it was one of the reasons I participated in the next episode, “World Enough and Time” with George Takei. (WEAT, by the way, has been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo awards, up against episodes from Doctor Who, Torchwood, and BSG.)
It might seem a bit odd to have a red-carpet premiere of an episode which was introduced online over a year ago and prior to the premiere of its subsequent episode, WEAT, but James Cawley, whose successful Elvis impersonator career funds much of this online series and who plays Kirk, had three strong reasons to give this episode another moment of glory.
First, when the episode was originally streamed, time restraints had prevented them from making the episode all it could be. While the special effects of the original effort by Joel Belluccii, Ben Alpi and Max Rem (aka Doug Drexler, Battlestar Galactica) were awesome, James had wanted to do so much more and felt this episode deserved another shot. Following in the footsteps of major studios releasing ‘Special Editions’, James and staff authorized a re-imagining of this episode with new VFX by Daren R. Docherman (Poseidon, X-Men 3, Monster House).
But more than that, James said he wanted to show appreciation to Walter Koenig, not only for his decades of wonderful entertainment, but also for his generous support of STNV. As James explained it, before Walter, STNV was ‘just fans playing Star Trek.’ Walter’s generous participation took STNV to a new level.
Like for every actor, Walter’s participation was contingent on a worthy script, but Koenig went one better than most actors and helped make that happen by phoning up his friend D.C. Fontana (one of my all-time favorite Trek writers) and asking her to write the script. And Dorothy came through with a marvelous script which gave closure to the Chekov character, something Walter felt was missing from TOS (The Original Series). This closure was so definitive that Dorothy insists that the Chekov you see in subsequent episodes is not Pavel, but his cousin, Sergei.
And if you’ve read my interviews (and when you read my upcoming article in Thrilling Wonder Stories), you know that George Takei also attributes his initial involvement in WEAT to Walter’s seal of approval and encouragement. It seems like Walter, whether directly or indirectly, is responsible for bringing a lot of industry people into this venture — both those who worked on the original series and those who wished they could have.
The third reason was because there’s an effort afoot to get Walter Koenig a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and STNV wanted to help showcase that effort. Unbelievably, he’s the only actor of the original main cast to not have a star. James admitted that Walter did not want him to make a big deal of it, but Cawley is determined to get Koenig what he deserves and to get it while Walter is still young and healthy enough to enjoy treading over it. And I heartily concur.
Because of this desire to showcase so much more than just the premier of a special edition of an already-streamed episode, it was billed as “A Night in 1969″ and James got up on stage and promised to take us back there. And he delivered in spades.
Mind you, I should point out that STNV is not done by Cawley alone. Many fans have donated their time, expertise, and even money to create these episodes. Many people donated their time, energy, and funding to make this event happen as well. And people like me were beneficiaries of this hard work and effort as I came out to join in the fun and support of my friends.
One delightful encounter was meeting Chris Doohan, Jimmy Doohan’s son. He’s surprisingly handsome, although why that should surprise me, I don’t know, but maybe because I met Jimmy when he was older and that’s how I think of him, while Scotty will always be as he appeared in TOS to me. In talking to Chris, I mentioned it was a shame he couldn’t play his father and he assured me he was too old.
He started to tell me about how good Simon Pegg was and I kinda cut him off, telling him that I had wanted to see Paul McGillion do the role. I started my typical spiel of how good an actor Paul McGillion is and Chris immediately cut me off saying that he agreed. He stressed that he had wanted Paul to play his dad.
In fact, Chris was quite keen on me understanding how much he had supported Paul McGillion in the role, and I assured him that I was well aware of his support. He then went on to say that Simon was very good in the role and I would like the performance.
Walter introduced me to his lovely actress wife, Judy Levitt, and after the show, I met his children Andrew and Danielle. Danielle had written, directed and acted in this wonderfully hilarious short about her Dad, called “Walter Koenig, Exposed,” which she shared with us. It was edited by her brother Andrew who also acted in it and purported to tell us the ‘true story of who Walter Koenig was.’
In the short, narrator and family friend, Alex Hunt, ‘revealed’ that Walter was a Russian spy planted in the US and even infiltrated the military. Danielle cleverly interspersed footage from her Dad’s films to prove these points.
One funny sequence was Danielle and Andrew saying how their Dad lied to them about going to Star Trek cons when he would sneak out to do his spying. He would bring home all these strange home-made items for them that he claimed fans had given him. Years later, they learned that he had made all these items himself at night in his various hotel rooms.
I can not do justice to how funny and clever this piece was, but the Koenigs were sitting behind me and I just had to turn around and tell Danielle what a great job she did.
Come to think of it, I was like in a Chekov sandwich — I had Walter Koenig, the original Chekov, behind me and Andy Bray who plays the young Chekov in front of me. Obviously a great place to be.
But this wasn’t the only delightful introductory piece. The Koenigs contributed the trailer to the upcoming movie, Inalienable, which Walter produced, wrote, and acted in. JJ Abrams also generously sent the trailer to his upcoming Star Trek film to help celebrate New Voyages and Walter’s night.
I’m not going to describe the episode in detail here, except to say, that an accidental explosion causes the virus from “The Deadly Years” (I’m not up on my ST trivia) to revive and age Chekov prematurely. Chekov must face his mortality and decide whether the life he has chosen has been worth it.
But what was really cool about this episode presentation here was that they truly took us back to experiencing it as we would have in 1969. WITH COMMERCIALS. Yes, I know, I don’t watch commercials much — if I can, I tape most programs and fast forward through the commercials as much as possible. Back then I did my school homework, ran to the bathroom, or to the refrigerator. But it was still cool to see those old commercials and remember that for the most part we did have to watch them.
Ralph Miller had located and edited in authentic commercials from the time period, and while I don’t know if I ever saw the particular commercials he used, they were so reminiscent of commercials I had seen, that they were delightful.
So too was a groan from a guy in the audience when an act came to an end and he moaned, “Not another commercial.” We all laughed because, even though we were loving these commercial breaks, we all have gone through similar reactions in front of our TV at home.
The roadrunner Plymouth commercial was great fun, but the highlight for me was seeing again the wonderful original environmental PSA commercial– the Native American who paddles his canoe through the polluted waters and stumbles through the garbage left on the ground in the forest AND CRIES FOR WHAT WE’VE DONE TO THE LAND. That tear rolling down his cheek always affected me growing up and even here, it choked me up.
When I first came to town and attended my first AFI Film Festival, I was fortunate enough to meet the Native American actor and tell him how much his performance had meant to me.
The sad thing is that I can’t recall any environmental public service clips of that caliber today. In fact, I can’t recall seeing any at all. If they are out there, they certainly aren’t memorable like this one.
Seeing the Crying Indian made me miss another favorite PSA — that of Smokey the Bear who taught kids not to start forest fires. Something we really need to see again out here in California where so many fires are arson caused.
The final remarkable and spectacular gift was a surprise tag at the end. One of the jarring things to me was that “To Serve All My Days” gives a resolution to Pavel Chekov that is inconsistent with the young Pavel Chekov appearing in our “WEAT” episode, which is the very next episode. Watching one after the other without an explanation of how Chekov could reappear young in “WEAT” after he died old in “TOAMD” prompted DC Fontana to insist that future episodes starred Pavel’s cousin, Sergei. I won’t spoil it for you, but this remarkable and fun tag scene bridges those two episodes nicely and I praised Andy for giving it to us.
After the showing of the episode, the theater’s Bob Nuchow introduced the participants in the Q&A panel: James Cawley, Andy Bray, John Carrigan who plays the Klingon Kargh, D.C. Fontana who wrote the episode, Walter Koenig, and Daren Docherman. Originally, Koenig was supposed to sit between Cawley and Fontana, but when Walter took the stage, he went to the end and sat in Nuchow’s chair.
Nuchow had his staff bring out another chair so he could sit at the end and see all the participant. This left an open spot next to Cawley. James then asked Jeff Quinn who played Spock to come up from the audience, making a nice introduction for his friend. I have to admit it was nice to see Kirk and Spock sitting together. It felt… right.
My favorite part of the Q and A panel which ended the show was when someone asked DC Fontana how she got involved and she said, “Walter called and played a dirty trick on me. He asked, how would you like to write another original Trek episode? What could you say to that?”
After much picture-taking, handshaking, and kudos to the various actors and creative people, many of us gathered at Cantor’s Deli to celebrate further.
It was a great night — a fun trip into the past and a delightful evening spent with truly talented and wonderful people.
Now, if you agree that Walter should also have his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame and while he’s still young enough to tread over it (the late Jimmy Doohan was sick by the time he was awarded his), you can write your support here:
Walk of Fame Commitee
c/ Hollywood Chamber of Commerce
7018 Hollywood Blvd, 2nd floor
Hollywood, CA 90028
That’s right, the old-fashion way… with pen and paper.
You can also get more information at Walter Koenig’s official site: www.walterkoenigsite.com/waltersstar
Addendum: “To Serve All My Days” and “World Enough and Time” are episodes of the online Star Trek New Voyages which were honored with a TVGuide.com Video Series Award in 2007.”
“World Enough and Time” has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and we are waiting to see how the vote goes.
Hugo and Nebula Nominations for Star Trek New Voyages: “World Enough and Time” March 22, 2008
Posted by gollysunshine in Internet Films, Star Trek, TV production, Uncategorized.Tags: "World Enough and Time", George Takei, Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Star Trek: New Voyages, WEAT
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Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Battlestar Galactica “Razor” written by Michael Taylor, directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
Dr. Who “Blink” written by Stephen Moffat, directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Dr. Who “Human Nature” / “Family of Blood” written by Paul Cornell, directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
Star Trek New Voyages “World Enough and Time” written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott Zicree, directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
Torchwood “Captain Jack Harkness” written by Catherine Tregenna, directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)
Scripts
Children of Men, by Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby
(Universal Studios, Dec06)
Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro
(Time/Warner, Jan07)
Blink, by Steven Moffat (script on Private Edition)
(Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Sep07 (Aired on SciFi Channel 14 Sep07))
The Prestige, by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan
(Newmarket Films, Oct06 (Oct 20, 2006 — based on the novel by Christopher Priest))
V for Vendetta, by Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski
(Warner Films, Mar06 (released 3/17/2006 — Written by the Wachowski Brothers, based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd and published by Vertigo/DC Comics))
World Enough and Time, by Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves (script on Private Edition)
(Star Trek: New Voyages, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com, Aug07 (Aired 8/23/07))
STAR TREK GOLD WAS IN ITS FRIENDSHIPS September 9, 2007
Posted by gollysunshine in Entertainment, Internet Films, Star Trek, Uncategorized.add a comment
One of the major draws to Star Trek, particularly women, was the relationships and friendships between the various men and women on the Enterprise, where each had each other’s back in battle and in life, not just because the commission said so, but because they generally loved and cared for each other. And I believe that such friendships like that of Kirk-Spock-McCoy and Sulu-Chekov and that between all of them, Scotty and Uhura is one of the biggest reasons original Star Trek has endured. Banter and humor being a big part of that as well.
And while I watch a diverse range of television shows, I can’t think of one which I come back to week after week that doesn’t have these very strong bonds of friendship.One of the most valuable things I took away from doing the Star Trek: New Voyages episode was new friendships to cherish. And I wanted to share a glimpse into one. Like their characters of Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura, John Lim, Andy Bray, and Julienne Irons share strong bonds of friendship that are a joy to be part of, even for a short period of time.
When I asked them to do some interviews to help publicize the premiere of “World Enough and Time,” not only were they all for it, but they wanted to do them together.Since time to the premiere was short, I agreed, and I chose the quietest place I could — my living room. So we gathered together and had a blast. What ensued was a great time.
So I wanted to share with you a glimpse into this appealing and humorous friendship that grew up through their association with Star Trek New Voyages which drew these actors together. You’ve heard what each had to say separately of who they are, what drew them to New Voyages, and where they are going, now hear the fun of having them in a room together. Remember that the following was done in fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Believe me, we weren’t. We were laughing throughout this section.
Me: Now this last thing is just an experiment. Because you’re all friends and everything.
Andy: I’ve never been to college to experience that fun. I never got to experiment.
Me: I just thought that since you’re all friends, I was going to ask you and see where it goes. Andy, what would fans like to know about John and Julienne?
Andy: Hmmm. What would fans like to know about John and Julienne?
Me (clarifying): Not together. (everyone laughing)
Andy (laughing): Oh, okay then I won’t say –
Me (teasing and laughing, cutting in): Unless there is something between them.
Andy: The thing about John… I don’t know. He’s the perfect roommate. He and I always seem to be ending up in rooming conditions, sharing hotels at premieres. I always feel like the Odd Couple. John literally almost to the point of having things wrapped in plastic. Really very neat. I feel like a slob next to him. It’s really like traveling with Oscar when I’m traveling with John, which seems fitting for Chekov and Sulu.
John: We’re pitching that as a new series. If anyone’s interested.
Andy: What the fans should know about Jules. I think they know a lot about her. She kinda wears her emotions on her sleeve. She’s very real. What you see is what you get. Very cool and down to earth – totally good-looking, uh, but that’s just me in love with her. I think that’s probably what fans want to know about her: the hot chick is totally accessible. She’ll talk to you guys. She’ll totally love it. She even put her MySpace page on the New Voyages website. She’s easy to talk to, she’ll talk to anyone. She’s a normal, down-to-earth, great girl.
Julienne: Aw shucks.
Me: John, what would fans like to know about Andy and Jules.
John: Andy, in addition to being a great actor, and I think this has already come out with talk about the vignette, is an incredible writer. I’ve read some of his work and he’s very talented. Very creative. He understands character very well and multi-talented. So, I’m extremely jealous. As for Julienne, heart of gold. I mean, as beautiful on the inside, if not more, than she is on the outside. She’s even lovelier in person than what you’d see on the screen. And I have to agree with Andy, we’re totally, obsessively in love with her.
Julienne: Aw geez.
Me: Okay, now it’s your turn to get back at these guys.
Julienne: Talking about Andy as a writer, Johnny Lim is a fantastic writer himself.
John: I paid her to say this.
Julienne: We’re… can I say this? Yeah? We’re working on a film project ourselves, totally doesn’t have anything to do with New Voyages, but it stars Andy, John and myself. John’s been writing it and it is amazing. It’s such a great script. Like all the elements with drama and comedy. It’s amazing, he’s hands down a great writer and I see these boys as my brothers. Like I love them so much. They are like… I don’t know… I feel like with Andy… there’s so many things I could say…
Andy: Go on.
Julienne: There is so much… Andy and I are going to be roommates. In an apartment. One thing that people would like to know, too, is that we’re moving in together. We’re gonna be roommates. Which is going to be too much fun. I had a slumber party the other night which Andy was at, and I hadn’t had so much fun with these guys that I’ve had in really a long time. They are just phenomenal people. Like phenomenal, phenomenal people and I cherish them. I really do. John’s mom calls me her daughter. I cherish these boys. They are the greatest boys ever.
Me, teasing: You guys going to be roommates or more?
Julienne (aghast): I just said they’re like my brothers.
Me (laughing): There’s always incest.
Andy, laughing: What publication is this for?
Me: Hey, come on, I might be able to do a different publication.
Julienne: As much as I would be honored to be romantically involved with either one of these boys, I just love them too much.
Andy: Likewise.
John: Likewise.
Andy: The fans would kill me if I…
Me: Well, I had to ask…
Julienne: I wouldn’t… I’d feel like in any other situation, if it came down to that, I’d have no problem with it at all. I love them to death. They’re amazing people, but I feel like we have such a kinship and such a friendship right now, that anything else, I’d be afraid to ruin that. I can’t express to you how much I love these boys.
Andy: Aw, shucks.
Me: I love you all, too. You are all wonderful guys. Now let’s see, Andy… what shouldn’t the fans know about John and Jules?
Julienne whistles. Laughter from everybody.
Andy: I was going to say that Jules is not a Star Trek fan, but I think they all do know that. (Note: this was a referral back to an earlier part of the interview where Julienne mixed up the names of the episodes and the boys teased her about that showing she wasn’t a Star Trek fan.)
Julienne: How could I not… I admire Star Trek. I just don’t… like Andy who has… am I allowed to say this?
Andy: What?
Julienne: Andy has like posters on his walls and he has a collection of Star Trek paraphernalia. I don’t know, I’ve just never been into it like that. But I love it. I do. I admire it. But you’re right, I’m not a fan. (laughs)
Andy: I don’t know what they shouldn’t know about Jules.
Julienne: Um-hmmm.
Andy: Maybe they shouldn’t know that she’s totally accessible and if you want to go out with her, go to her MySpace.
Everyone laughs.
Andy: What shouldn’t they know about John?
John: Oh geez.
Andy: For the helmsman of the Enterprise, he’s really bad with directions. If it weren’t for his GPS, his navigator, he’d get lost.
John: Very true.
Andy: He needs his navigator. He needs his computer.
Me: That shouldn’t be. Okay, John, what shouldn’t they know about Andy?
John: What shouldn’t they know about Andy? Well, gosh. So many things. No, I’m just kidding. I’m gonna have to pass to Jules.
Julienne: Want me to go?
John: Yeah, go to Jules first.
Me: Okay, what shouldn’t they know about Andy. Remember this is going on the Internet.
Julienne: I think that…. I don’t know if it is what you shouldn’t know but what is really interesting about Andy is that he’s really a sensitive guy. He has such a soft heart and like he would never, I don’t know if you would ever think that when meeting him, he’s such a goofball. Like he’s so sensitive and it’s so cute.
Andy: Unless it’s girls which in that case they’ll say that I’m bad to the bone.
Julienne: I think that’s just Andy. Because he has such a sweet, sensitive heart, he gets his heart broken easily. And that’s cute. It’s cute.
Me: So they shouldn’t know how easy it is to break his heart.
John: Well, now they know.
Julienne: Now they know.
Andy: It’s now all over the internet.
Me: I told you it was an experiment to see what we would get.
Julienne: About John. I have in my head that John collects cans and bottles and takes them to the recycling bin and collects the money to do his laundry.
John: I do that for the environment.
Julienne: I think it’s awesome. But you go to Johnny’s house and there’s cans and bottles and you’ll say what are you doing, like the other day I went to his office, he says I’m going to the recycle bin to do my laundry. Got $4 for all my cans. Think that kinda cute.
Me: Okay, John, what shouldn’t they know about Andy?
John: What shouldn’t they know about Andy? The one thing that comes to mind is that when he’s playing Chekov, he isn’t really wearing a wig. That’s his real hair. He actually grew it out and he molded it into this kinda Davy Jones look.
Andy: I have to walk around with this.
John: And he still walks around with it.
Andy: You know, I still think it’s cool. He’s a nice comfortable character.
John: What shouldn’t they know about Jules? The one thing that comes to mind is that, you know, you wouldn’t expect this of someone who’s so beautiful—
Andy: What? She gets drunk and throws her feet out of the car?
John: Well, that too. But it’s kinda like cool, I think, Jules will call me up and say, I really like this guy, but I’m not really sure if he likes me. Oh my god, if he’s hetero, then he’s gonna like you. Oh jesus, it’s a no brainer.
Julienne: Okay, I said yes already.
John: Someone so beautiful. Someone so wonderful. Someone so amazing. I mean for…
Julienne laughing. I do.
John: She has insecurities about whether or not someone likes her. You know, yeah everyone likes you.
Andy: We have so many insecurities.
John: Yeah we do.
Julienne: I’ll be sitting there with John and Andy and I’ll say, I don’t know if he likes me or not.
John: Please. And if you know Jules in person, you know, she’s even more beautiful than what you see on TV, so it’s like… that’s why I’m in love with her. So I’m just saying all this stuff to get on her good side. I think with all of us, we’re just trying to make our way and yeah, we have those insecurities, so.
We should all be blessed with such friendships — those we see, like this one in real life and those that keep us going back to the Star Trek universe to play in.
Julienne Irons Takes Uhura To Where the Sixties Wouldn’t Go August 23, 2007
Posted by gollysunshine in Entertainment, Internet Films, Star Trek, TV production, Uncategorized.7 comments
It doesn’t seem likely that a beautiful, young, working actress who has been acting since a little girl in plays and independent films, including one (“Transformations”) that was at the Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco Film Festivals, and who is NOT, by her own admission, a Star Trek fan, would wind up playing beloved, communications lieutenant, Uhura, in episodes of Star Trek New Voyages, let alone for nearly six years.
It wasn’t that Star Trek didn’t live at her house while Julienne Irons was growing up, but it was her Dad who was the fan. “My Dad used to watch it all the time and my Dad used to always point out Uhura because she was that one black actress that everybody noticed,” she told me when we got together in Los Angeles mere days before the red-carpet premiere of “World Enough and Time,” Star Trek New Voyages’ newest episode. “So he watched it, but I didn’t have like Star Trek posters around my room and stuff like that. I knew of the show, but just because of my Dad.”
So if you think she got involved in New Voyages to please her dad, guess again. “Jack Marshall had hired me for another film that they were doing – I forgot the name of it right now, but that fell through. He was friends with James Cawley and they wanted to do this thing called Star Trek New Voyages. I was like, that’s a little weird, but I’ll do it. They cast me as Uhura and one thing led to another. I found myself up in Port Henry trying on all these weird alien costumes, because they didn’t have anybody to fit them.”
At the time, the only other actor up there with her was Jeff Quinn, who played Spock up until recently when he moved to Los Angeles to work as a PA on Battlestar Galactica. “We were up there as the first actors on the set, trying on the costumes. It was actually a lot of fun. So Jack Marshall definitely got me involved. He was the guy.”
So there was no dying urge to join New Voyages so you could play Uhura, I wanted to know. “Well, there is a dying urge to act,” she laughed. “I obviously love acting and putting on Nichelle Nichols shoes for a little while and playing Uhura, that was definitely a dying urge, you know to do that, but it was more about playing Uhura than it was being in Star Trek, for me.”
Talking about the importance of stepping into Nichelle’s character made me wonder if Julienne had any insight into why Uhura is such an iconic character that fans have loved her for forty years, despite new series, new movies, and new characters. “I think she brings a strength with her and she was the woman on the ship,” Julienne ventured. “I remember James (Cawley), at the last screening we had, referred to me as the Goddess of the Enterprise. Uhura is definitely the Goddess of the Enterprise – she is that one strong woman who is intelligent, she’s a joy to be around, she is warm, people can talk to her.”
Julienne believes that people love Uhura because she is such an enjoyable character and in fact, was a lot more popular than she was ever given credit for. “I read her book, On Becoming Uhura, I think that was what it was called. In one part, it talked about fan mail and how Nichelle was getting just as much fan mail as Kirk and McCoy, but they were hiding it from her, because they didn’t want it to seem like she was as popular as Kirk and McCoy was. But she was. Someone from the mail room came and said to her, ‘Miss Nichols, I have bags of mail for you in the mail room – will you come down and get it?’ Bags and bags of mail, but they wouldn’t give it to her because they didn’t want it to seem like she was more popular than Shatner. And I think that shows how much people love her.”
Julienne believes that that was all Nichelle Nichols – that she is such a beautiful person herself that she brought that beauty to Uhura, like nobody else could. And for that, she will always be Uhura, no matter how many actresses subsequently play the role.
However, unlike her co-stars Andy Bray and John Lim, who have now gotten to meet and perform opposite their characters’ originators, Julienne has never gotten to meet the woman who created Uhura – at least not yet. “I feel a bit envious that Andy and John got to meet their people. The idea of meeting her — there was talk about doing one with her – I’m not doing the show any more, but just meeting her and getting her input on New Voyages and talking to her about it would be amazing for me. I spent all this time figuring out who I was as Uhura, who she was, and watching her and trying to fit into her shoes and then figuring out who I needed to be in my shoes, and what she would want and all this stuff about Nichelle, Miss Nichols, that I want to know, that I haven’t been able to get because I haven’t been able to talk to her.”
Rumor has it that Nichelle Nichols might be at “World Enough and Time” premiere, so I asked her what she’d say to Nichelle if she met up with her. “Honestly, um, I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “Like tell her I honor her. I honor her performance, I honor her for who she is as a woman, and I thank her for what she’s done for me, as an actress, just being in Star Trek and sticking with that. When she wanted to quit, she stuck with it and that did a lot for me, as a black actress in Hollywood. I just appreciate that and respect her a lot for that.”
Being there from the beginning, Julienne could see the changes that came with the cast and crew learning to work together and gaining experience. “It’s been such a progression,” she confirmed. “The first episode we did, I was spray painting Onabi’s body green. With spray paint we bought at Wal-Mart. And yet in this last episode, we had Craft Services. It’s been very different. Each episode has its highs and its lows, but it’s been getting more professional. This last episode, “World Enough and Time,” none of the other episodes compare to it. Except for “To Serve All My Days.” It’s just such a professional shoot and the people who worked on it were just amazing with what they did – just having things like the High Def and steadicam.”
It wasn’t until “To Serve All My Days” that the cast and crew figured out that they indeed had a fan base and there were millions of people who wanted to see their episodes, Julienne said. Suddenly, “everybody was bringing their ‘A’ game even more to the set than before. Before was like, bringing family to the set. Before was like, ‘oh this is fun, this is like a family. The family is here. Let’s try on new costumes. Let’s put on this makeup. Let’s play around. Let’s play Star Trek for a little while.’ But with “To Serve All My Days” and WEAT, it became ‘okay, let’s get through this. People are actually watching this. We have Walter and we have George in these episodes and we have to be professional about this.’ It’s so bizarre. All of them were good in themselves. They have their joyous moments, but these two last episodes are definitely the ones I’m most proud of.”
Julienne was cute in that every time she mentioned Nichelle, she corrected herself to say Miss Nichols, saying, “I don’t feel worthy enough to call her Nichelle.” That prompted me to tell her that the director of “World Enough and Time,” Marc Scott Zicree, thought her worthy enough. In my interview with him, he told me that she was a terrific actress – so terrific in the scene study they did with her, that he wrote her a special scene with George just to showcase her talent as an actress.
“I was completely honored when Marc came to me and said ‘I’m writing a scene for you with George.’” She was surprised, though, because she felt that Marc had never had a chance to see what she could do. In the previous episodes, “it wasn’t really about the acting, it was just about… ‘okay, here’s your line, one two three go. All right, here’s your line, one two three go.’ So, in those episodes, he wasn’t able to see me as an actress and what I could bring to the table.”
The scene studies were an entirely different matter. “We did this intense scene with John (Kelley), we got John who plays McCoy to play my father, and I had just gotten into a car accident and just about died in the hospital. It was this big dramatic improv that we were doing. And it got really intense. Both of us started crying. And I think, Marc was like ‘whoa, where did this actress come from?’ It was like a lot of fun to be there and show him that.”
So did the scene with George measure up? Will we see the actress Marc saw in that scene study? “You’ll see some of the actress in that scene,” Julienne was quick to point out, referring to the fact that as an actress, she has much to give. “It’s a sweet scene and it adds an element of sensitivity between Uhura and Sulu that you sometimes don’t see a lot…. It was definitely for me an experience, working with George.” She went on to reveal that she kissed George on the cheek and that was “quite luscious, too.” After all, “He’s just the cutest man. I love him so much.”
In fact, this isn’t the only episode where Julienne gets to shine and stretch Uhura. She stars in an upcoming vignette for New Voyages, called “Pursuit.” It’s directed by none other than her New Voyages co-star, Andy Bray. And it has something we never got to see in the Sixties version of Star Trek, except in its ‘bad’ mirror universe. “Uhura kicks butt in this vignette. And anybody who wants to see her kick butt will love this vignette.”
Much of this vignette was filmed during the actors down time from actively filming “World Enough and Time” – whenever they weren’t needed to be in front of the cameras, you could find them off in the corner of the bullpen area where the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft was (yes, authentic replica of that as well), working on their vignette. Conditions were less than ideal, as they would have to stop every time quiet was called for on the set, but they persisted. Often you could see trusty friend and co-star John Lim working the lighting so his pal Andy could shoot, or filling in for whatever other crew person was needed and not available.
Hence, it’s no surprise that when Julienne was asked to talk about her favorite moments from the episode, she brought up the guerrilla filming of “Pursuit.” “That was my favorite part of the shoot, hands down. Just working with Andy, just seeing him get all frantic and stressed out, because we only had like two hours to shoot like eight pages.”
To make things even harder, Julienne had a scene near the end where she has to come out of her shuttle in tears. But the bullpen was the area where the crew hung out and passed the time talking and playing computer games when they weren’t needed to do their jobs on the set. Hence it was hard for her to get into the proper frame of mind for her emotional scene.
But like a beautiful princess, she had a knight come to her rescue – in the form of a guy named Pat Cleveland. “He was like, ‘you guys need me to do anything?’ And we told him we just needed people to be quiet. And he was like our dude, getting people to be quiet when we were shooting, saying, ‘okay guys, everybody shut up. Be quiet. They’re doing their thing.’ He was our guy. Protecting our little Pursuit world. Protecting our little vignette world. Helping us get our episode done. As soon as he told everybody to get quiet, I took five, ten minutes, got my tears up, and it was pretty good.”
Hence, it is easy to see why Julienne remembers this as her “favorite moment, hands down. Love that guy for telling everybody to shut up. Love Andy. Andy’s like a phenomenal director.” In fact, it was hard to stem Julienne’s enthusiasm for this vignette of Andy’s. “I can’t imagine if we had everything that we needed to shoot this project, which we didn’t, but if we did, if we had had all the manpower that we had needed to do this, Andy is such a great director, it would have been like a billion times better. It’s good, but we could have done so much more with it. But kudos to Andy for being so fabulous.”
Getting back to the main project on the floor at that time, “World Enough and Time” or WEAT as we refer to it, Julienne mentioned that another favorite scene was John Lim’s emotional turn in his quarters when he is crying about his daughter. “Cali (Ross, actress and set make-up artist) and I were sitting in the back, just listening to him do this scene. We couldn’t even see him doing it, and yet we were both in tears. I’m getting goose bumps right now just thinking about it. It was awesome just hearing it. It was so touching. I was like, ‘oh god, go away, it’s so beautiful.’ When something good like that reaches you and makes you tear up and you’re not even watching it, you’re just hearing it, that’s some powerful acting right there.”
However, that wasn’t the only WEAT scene that stabbed Julienne in the heart. “My favorite moment other than when Johnny Lim’s crying about his daughter, is that last moment where Alana (played by Christina Moses) is on the bridge and sparks fly and a tear drops and she fades away. Ooooh. That scene is breathtaking. She’s such a beautiful actress, and she’s amazing in that role.”
In answer to my request for a moment that made Julienne laugh, she said she had one, but she didn’t know if it wasn’t more sick than funny. “We had a photographer Michel, I’ve forgotten Michel’s last name, but he’s an amazing photographer and we were going to McDonald’s. Inside the happy meals they had little Barbie dolls. So one night at the campfire, Kurt, Michel and Jeff put the little Barbie dolls on little stakes or whatever you call them and burned them on the fire. It was like blazing Barbies.”
These episodes are so character-laden that they have allowed Takei and Koenig to reach milestones with their characters in a way they were never able to do as supporting characters on the original show. “As Walter put it,” Andy Bray explained, “he never really got a chance to be a rounded character in the show or the movies, and this gave him a chance to put a period on the end of the sentence of his career as Chekov.”
Ever the warm-hearted and caring person that Andy Bray and John Lim describe her to be, Julienne was quick to assert: “I hope that Nichelle – Miss Nichols — gets that moment, too. Walter and George had these amazing characters that they were able to develop in moments in these last two episodes that were just phenomenal. I pray that she gets to do that as well. And really shine.”
With “WEAT” essentially behind her, except for walking the red carpet on Thursday, August 23, 2007, it was time to talk about the future and what we might see her in next — besides the “Pursuit” vignette, which they hope to get out next year. “There are two projects I’m working on — one called “The Keeper,” and one called “Heat on the Delta.” “The Keeper,” I believe, right now stars A. Griffin and is being directed by Tony Tarantino, who is Quentin Tarantino’s father. “The Keeper” is based on the first black Coast Guard. It’s going to be a lot of fun to shoot out in North Carolina next year. I just signed with a great agency, Alvarado Rey Agency. And a great commercial agency, Avalon Artists group.”
Julienne’s final words were of thanks to the fans for their support: “I want to say thank you to everybody who supported us and been a part of our team. I mean even if you haven’t been on the sets, and you’ve been on the boards and you’ve been supporting us and you know, just… I feel like the fans and the people who love us and who love what we do, are the reason why we’re here, the reason why we’re sitting here and why we have this huge premiere coming up on Thursday, because of them, and I love them and I cherish them.”
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Keep an eye out for the upcoming article on Andy Bray who plays Chekov. It’ll be appearing soon in “Fireside Chats from Hollywood” in TVGuide.com at
http://community.tvguide.com/blog/Fireside-Chats-Hollywood/700152230
