SFL: I have to tell you from the start that I’m not a Star Trek fan, in the sense that I’ve never really got into the show, so you won’t be getting lots of questions about which lines you said in a particular episode.
BS: You know, I’ve not got that at all. Not one person.
SFL: From journalists or fans?
BS: From fans I’ve got it, but none of the journalists or “journalists”.
SFL: Do you find it strange or scary when the fans start coming up and start quoting lines to you?
BS: It really doesn’t happen that often. If I walk down the street people don’t accost me and say, “In this episode…” They’re much less bizarre than people like to think they are. They are certainly less bizarre than football fans. I don’t know of any Star Trek fan that’s punched anybody at a Star Trek event. They don’t scream at each other. They’re very calm, very intellectual people.
SFL: So, forty years of Star Trek yesterday.
BS:No, today.
SFL: The celebration dinner was last night?
BS: The dinner was last night, but forty years ago last night, actually nothing happened. Forty years ago today Star Trek happened.
SFL: So how does it feel to be part of that legend?
BS: It feels fine. It doesn’t really feel anything. When people ask me about it, I think about it and it’s fine, but otherwise it never occurs to me.
SFL: So it started off as just another job?
BS: It was just a job. It was exactly that. It was like, if somebody works for a paper like The Times, which has been around for a long time and you ask them what it feels like to be part of that legacy, they’ll probably say, it feels like nothing. It’s a job, but a very job. It’s a job I’m pleased to have had.
SFL:SFL: You did it for seven or eight years?
BS: I did the series for seven years, and then I did four feature films.
SFL:SFL: Which you helped to write one of.
BS: I co-wrote the story for the last one, NEMESIS.
SFL: Is that something you’d like to do more of, more writing?
BS: Yeah, it is, if I could just find the time to do it. I tell myself every day, “Today I’m going to start.” I have so many ideas, I’ve got entire films in my head that I want to put down but it’s like, sit down and do it.
SFL: What about directing, is that something you’d like to do?
BS: No. I really don’t want to direct. I would if necessary. I have a short film that I wrote that I would like to direct, but I’m having a really difficult time with it right now. It was based on a short story. I met the author years ago, and he gave me the rights, or rather I bought the rights from him, to do a short film. The rights lapsed, and I had other things to do, and I forgot all about it. Then recently I thought, I should do that short. What actually happened was it was too technically difficult a film to do when I originally optioned it. There are effects in it that were way to difficult. Now it’s doable, for less money, because everything is digital you can do it very easily. But the fellow that wrote the short story passed away. He was a young guy, just 31 years old. A brilliant, brilliant guy. He passed away and I can’t find who to option it from now. I can’t find his estate, I can’t find his parents and I don’t know what to do. I’ve got the pieces all written and ready to go. I’m thinking I might just go ahead and do it, and let him sue me, because how much could they sue me for? After all, it’s a short. It’s not going to make any money. We’ll see.
SFL: Speaking of digital technology, what do you think of the advent of virtual CGI actor?
BS: Has it happened yet?
SFL: In SPIDER-MAN and some of the other big special effects movies.
BS: In LORD OF THE RINGS Gollum was part digital/part real. Andy Sirkis was a real person, and he’s a very good actor, and in KING KONG it was half Andy and half digital. There was a film where there was a woman, the female lead was all digital. I don’t know what it was called but it didn’t do that well. But I don’t think that will ever happen actually. I think there is a big factor missing in the digital area, apart from making them look real, and that is the sex appeal is missing. Digital’s still not quite right. Even if they get it to look really right, I think the sex thing plays a big part in people watching other people. If there’s no possibility of anything happening…
SFL: But take, for example, the character of Data who is asexual, he could quite easily be transformed into a digital character.
BS: Yeah, that’s probably so. That’s true.
SFL: He would also be ageless.
BS: They should have done that. Of course the technology didn’t exist when they hired me. Good thing for me it didn’t.
SFL: How did you get to be the Star Trek ambassador for the events over here? Did all the cast sit around and put their names in a hat, or draw straws?
BS: No. Actually the gentleman that heads Paramount Home Video called my agent and asked if I’d be interested in doing it and my agent, typically, ignored it and I found out about it and called him myself and said, “Hey, what’s going on? I’ll do it.” Also, I don’t think anyone else was available.
SFL: There’s also a big event happening at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.
BS: I was invited to that too, but decided to come to this instead. Is the Seattle one a big thing?
SFL: I’m sure they want it to be.
BS: That’s where the rest of them are. They got booked for that. I still hadn’t signed on to do that and so I was available to do this.
SFL: Do you do many of the conventions and stuff?
BS: I’ve done a few, two or three a year, maybe.
SFL: So you’re not worried about getting into a GALAXY QUEST situation?
BS: No, not really. Although you never know, it could happen. I don’t actually do that many, but they’re always pleasant, quite nice really. What could be negative is you are paid to walk out on a stage and be greeted by hundreds of people who adore you…
SFL: As Data?
BS: They’re not idiots. Star Trek fans are on the higher end of the IQ spectrum. They’re not confused that that was a fictional character and I am a real person who played that character. They’re advanced enough that they understand I am an actor who portrayed that character, and they’re interested in that.
SFL: Can we talk about THRESHOLD?
BS: Sure.
SFL: What happened?
BS: You know, it’s a matter of conjecture, but I think that Les Moonves, who runs CBS never really wanted the show on the air. He greenlit the show and was never sure what he greenlit, and I think when he realised it was science fiction, which he hates, he decided the show should not be on the air anymore. They buried us really. They put us on Friday nights at 9 o’clock – just the worst timeslot you could possibly have. We were sent memorandums that said that in interviews we were never to say the words sci-fi or alien. We were to say it was science fact, which is preposterous, because it never happened. What are they talking about. Then they moved us to another night, for two weeks they moved us to another night, but they never ran a single ad to say we had moved. I watched one night, the slot the moved us into was say a Wednesday night at nine, I watched the previous week waiting for the ads that say, “Next week in this time slot”, they ran trailers for every other CBS show, except ours. I thought, “What’s going on here, I don’t think they want us to be on.” And they didn’t and they yanked it. Which is a shame.
SFL: It was really building up to something interesting.
BS: It was. The ideas they had for where it was going were really interesting and it’s a shame.
SFL: Your character, Nigel Fenway, was developing into a complex character.
BS: He was. I think we shot twelve episodes, and in episode thirteen Carla’s character, Molly, was fired – she was still the star of the show – but as far as the Threshold, she was fired and she appoints Fenway to head the group, while she’s working underground with them. I was looking forward to it.
SFL: He was a very human character with lots of fallibilities and emotional conflicts.
BS: Indeed.
SFL: Are there any other roles you’d like to play?
BS: Yeah. I don’t know what they are. In other words I’d like to continue being employed. I’m not that picky what the character is, as long as I feel I can do something with it.
SFL: What about the theatre?
BS: I’ve just had a meeting today with someone from the Duke of York Theatre, saying “Give me a job, I want to be in the theatre here.”
SFL: There’s a lot of American screen actors that want to come and do the West End stage.
BS: Definitely. Well I’ve had a couple of opportunities that I wasn’t able to do due to other schedules. But I feel I should be doing this at least once in my lifetime.
SFL: Have you done much theatre before?
BS: Yeah. I’ve done six Broadway shows and countless off-Broadway shows. So I’ve been on the stage many, many times.
SFL: So you like it?
BS: Love it.
SFL:But do you find it a different discipline to film acting?
BS: It’s not a different way of acting, it’s a matter of size. The frame is bigger, but you do it the same way. It’s all based on the same thing, pretending, and trying to be truthful in your pretending. And you just try to be truthful louder on the stage.
SFL: And you have a lot more lines to remember at one time.
BS: You do, but they’re the same lines every night. You don’t have to go home and learn lines, you already know them. Once you know them, you know them.
SFL: Hopefully.
BS: Yeah. You are walking the tightrope every night wondering what’s going to happen. But if you are working with a good cast and you forget something there is always someone there to pick it up. You don’t get a chance to do it over again.
SFL: Why do think STAR TREK has endured for so long?
BS: You know what, my guess is as good as yours. It would be a guess because I don’t have a crystal ball, but part of me feels like saying, “Why do so many people drink Coca Cola?” Because it tastes good. That’s the same with STAR TREK, it tastes good.
SFL: And yet there are lots of equally good shows that have been axed, like THRESHOLD, FIREFLY…
BS: Right, but it’s still a matter of numbers. You have to somehow capture the audience. If it captures the audience’s imagination, the larger audience, because you need a certain number of people watching to make it worth them spending the money on making it.
SFL: Wasn’t the original series axed at one time?
BS: It only lasted three seasons, then it came back bigger than ever.
SFL: Because of the fans.
BS: Yeah, because of the fans. Well there was enough of a groundswell that they figured they could make a movie for a reasonable amount of money then it’s worth doing. And they did, and people came, so they made another and another and then made another series, and on and on and on.
For example, my driver today was saying he’s seen The Phantom of the Opera four times. Like ten years apart, a couple of times. It’s been playing for about twenty years, and the question there would be, “Why?” To what do you attribute the longevity of The Phantom of the Opera as a stage show? Surely everyone who ever wanted to see it has seen it.
SFL: What about The Mousetrap that has been running for over fifty years?
BS: What about that. There’s no real explanation.
SFL: They’ve become institutions.
BS: As STAR TREK has too. STAR TREK, especially in America, is as much a part of the cultural fabric as anything else. And worldwide too.
SFL: Now, you keep reading how the technology of the original series has become a reality.
BS: Exactly. It’s all come to pass. But that’s always been true of science fiction. There is something about the collective consciousness, that if you can think of it, it will come to pass. If you look at old science fiction, BUCK ROGERS and things like that. Jules Verne, a lot of that stuff came to pass that those guys thought of.
SFL: Space travel…
BS: We’re going to go to the moon, Jules Verne said. A trip to the moon. “A trip to the moon?” The only reason it ever occurred is because he thought of it, and put it out there into the consciousness. That’s the beauty of science fiction, they think about what will happen in the future. And right now, the fact that they think there will be a future is comforting, because the big question of our time is, “Is there a future in our future?”
SFL: Well our time is up. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
BS: Thank you.