INTERVIEW: Garrett Wang, Robbie Duncan McNeill on the secrets of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’
Photo: Courtesy of Creation Entertainment / Provided with permission.
This was meant to be a special year for the cast, crew and fans of Star Trek: Voyager. The TV team that brought this beloved sci-fi series to legions of Trekkies and Trekkers around the world was gearing up for 25th anniversary celebrations, but the coronavirus pandemic has gotten in the way of cracking the bubbly.
To compensate for so many people being stuck at home in quarantine, Creation Entertainment, which hosts the annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas each summer, has put together several virtual experiences for fans to enjoy. This past weekend, they welcomed Voyager actors Garrett Wang (Harry Kim) and Robbie Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris) for a one-hour appearance via the StageIt platform.
Wang and McNeill will also take part in an exclusive virtual meet and greet, limited to 15 people, Wednesday, May 6 at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EST). This more intimate affair is open to people who win successful Creation auction bids, starting at $50 a ticket. As of press time, the event is sold out.
No doubt one of the topics of conversation during the meet-and-greet will be the dynamic duo’s multi-year project that they’re about launch: To properly celebrate the 25th anniversary of Voyager, Wang and McNeill are kicking off a new podcast called The Delta Flyers.
On the new podcast, they will share behind-the-scenes stories of each and every one of Voyager’s 172 episodes. Tune in each week to see the guys move from the pilot episode, “Caretaker,” all the way to the series finale, “Endgame.” They will tackle a new episode each week, so Wang and McNeill are set to be immersed in Trek fandom for at least two-and-a-half years. Expect the first episode to hit this week, and listeners can also contribute via Patreon throughout the podcast’s run to receive exclusive content.
A bit about Voyager …
After Star Trek: The Original Series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine came Star Trek: Voyager starring Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway, and helping her out on the bridge were Tom (McNeill) and Harry (Wang), in addition to Chakotay (Robert Beltran), Tuvok (Tim Russ), B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), The Doctor (Robert Picardo), Kes (Jennifer Lien), Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Neelix (Ethan Phillips).
Recently McNeill and Wang spoke with Hollywood Soapbox about their iconic roles on the memorable show. They opened up about their time working with the cast and crew, their desire to direct episodes and whether they believe in the future envisioned by Gene Roddenberry.
Here’s Part II of that discussion. (Click here for Part I.) Enjoy fellow Trekkers and Trekkies!
On Wang’s love of the Star Trek fan community …
Wang: “Sci-fi being my favorite genre of all, it definitely imprints upon how I deal with fans, how I talk with fans, how open I am, and you can’t really fake enthusiasm. I think most human beings can sense whether somebody is at a convention and can’t wait to get back up to their hotel room and get away from everything, or me, I’d rather stay down at the con for the entire time and never go back to my room. They can sense the difference, and I really feel that that’s something that is a breath of fresh air for fans to see that because I’ve heard of so many horror stories, not necessarily with Trek actors. …
“Fans will tell me, ‘Oh my gosh, I went to get an autograph from actor X, and they didn’t even look me in the eye. Or they were so bored. They were on their phone, and they ignored me and did that.’ I always tell people, or at least I tell other actors that are new to Star Trek, ‘You need to be very cognizant of how you behave when you are a public event where you’re representing Star Trek at a convention or any other event because a second of disregard or ignoring someone can lead to a complete shattering of this person’s image of you. They can have a lifetime of adoration of your character and who are, and the minute you meet them, if you’re busy on your phone and not even giving them the time of the day, they’re going to literally have an absolute bitter feeling. They might not even watch your series anymore after that they’re so upset and disappointed, so it’s really I think very important to be present when you’re at a convention or any other public event where people are coming up and recognizing you as an actor from Star Trek.”
On the development of Harry Kim as a character …
Wang: “If you think about all the characters on Voyager, Harry Kim has the most blank canvas to work with because he’s just graduated from Starfleet Academy. This is his first posting. This is his very first mission, so [the producers] didn’t really have to tell me much. They just said he’s the innocent, wide-eyed ensign is what he is, and so that gave me the most room to grow this character.
“Now I do believe that having nine series regulars sort of negatively impacted the character growth of Ensign Kim because when you have that many series regulars — and Voyager has more than TNG, TOS, all the other shows, we have the most by far — and when you have that many people, sometimes some characters will get ignored a little bit, and I think they dropped the ball at times with Kim where they could have really had more character development. That’s unfortunate, but I did my best with what I could get.
“I know that I was lucky to be given the 100th episode, ‘Timeless,’ where the ship crashes into the ice planet. That was my chance to really shine and show people that I had more acting chops than people were giving me credit for, and as far as [Rick] Berman is concerned, Berman kind of gave an edict when we were first cast. We were taken to lunch during the first week of the show, and all the actors are sitting there. And Berman told everybody [that] all of you playing human characters … your delivery of your lines should be less emotional, more militaristic, more two-dimensional because this is how we’re going to make the aliens look more realistic. … This is my first big role. I did not stand up and say, ‘Well, I don’t believe in that.’ But in my heart of hearts, I sat there, and I thought, wait a minute, you’re telling the humans that are full of emotion to be less emotional.”
On the relationship between actor, director and producer …
McNeill: “I’m no longer an actor. I’ve moved into that executive producer role like Rick, and I’ll tell you, that’s very common for producers to start off a series and say here’s how we want it. Here’s how we want to do it. I don’t know how successful [Garrett] would have been in standing up and saying I’m not going to do it that way.”
Wang: “[They said], if you guys put too much emotion into your lines, we’re going to send you a memo to tell you to reshoot that scene in second unit. And I got that memo three times, and I just said, ‘OK, fine, if this is the way you want to do it, I’ll do it your way. I did. I towed the line.’ … You’re right, me standing up probably wouldn’t have done very good for my career on Trek, but I still think my belief is that it would have added extra layers of nuance if we were allowed to be a little bit more human is my feeling.”
On how McNeill prepared for a Paris-focused episode …
McNeill: “I don’t know episode numbers like how many episodes a season were episodes that featured Tom Paris, but it wasn’t a lot. It was maybe five or six a season tops where I had a significant big storyline that was kind of in the main storyline. Most of the time I was somewhere in the middle. I was helping out The Doctor with his storyline or helping out somebody else.
“Anyway, yeah, when those scripts came through where there was really a focus on Paris having a real journey and that the story was about his journey, that was exciting to me. It was very exciting because we still worked long hours. We shot 14, 15, 16 hours a day on a regular basis, so whether I was doing scenes with lots of dialogue and lots of story, or whether I was just on the bridge for 15-16 hours, I was still going to be spending my day there, so long days. I would rather have a meaty scene. And sometimes even if it wasn’t my story, but I had a couple good scenes with someone else in their story, I loved that. That was very satisfying for me, too.”
On whether the Voyager cast members are still close …
McNeill: “Most of those actors on DS9 still live in Los Angeles. On our show, people live everywhere. Garrett lives in Canada. I live in Atlanta. …. I kind of miss that sort of thing. I wish we all lived closer together. When most of us lived in L.A., we would have a boys’ dinner every couple of months. All the boys from Voyager would go out to the same steakhouse, the Palm in West Hollywood, and we’d have our regular guys’ night out, the Voyager boys. And that was such a great tradition. We’d do that every couple months, and we did that for years. But then people started moving away to different places.”
On the final season of Voyager …
McNeill: “It was understood that they were prepping Enterprise. They were talking about casting Enterprise. There was a lot of talk about the development of Enterprise by the time the last season started of our show. We knew that that was probably the end of it for us, and I think, I don’t know about anyone else, I was ready to move on. We had done a lot of episodes, a lot of good episodes. Personally I had started directing, and I really wanted the opportunity to do some more directing. … I started directing early in season three, and I directed one a year after that.”
On directing episodes of Voyager …
McNeill: “I was bugging Rick Berman and the producers for two years, and then early in that season three, I got the episode finally. And then all of a sudden, the floodgates opened. Bob ending up directing. Tim ended up directing. Roxann obviously directed.”
Wang (laughing): “What was annoying was that when Robbie got the directing nod, the next episode that we filmed after his directing nod, it was the episode with Tom and Harry trapped in the prison ship. And so while we’re filming that, now you see sitting next to the director, Les Landau, was Bob Picardo, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, and honestly they were making such a hullabaloo, I got pissed off. I was like, ‘Guys, stop joking around. We’re trying to focus. We’re trying to act here.’ They noticed, oh my gosh, they really are letting actors direct. They all jumped on the bandwagon immediately after that.”
McNeill: “I think everybody was sincere that they wanted to direct, but I think once I directed, I kind of broke the barrier there. I think the actors who had more quietly harbored those interests all of a sudden they didn’t want to miss their opportunity. Wow, they’re really going to let actors direct. I want to be in line. You’ve got Tim and Roxann and Bob. Who else? Andy Robinson from DS9 came over. He was directing. Marvin Rush, our DP, directed some. They were very good about giving people the opportunity if it made sense, and I think they gave a lot of people some very good opportunities.”
On whether they buy into the overall Star Trek mission and Gene Roddenberry’s original vision …
McNeill: “Every episode had a frigging space battle. There was never any peace. Even though I think Starfleet talked a great game of peace, to tell these stories there was a lot of action. Personally I think there’s a lot of great lessons, and Gene Rodenberry’s vision certainly about diversity and about exploring new ideas and being open to new experiences, that is a great premise that I totally buy into. I don’t know that any of the shows has done it perfectly, but I think underneath it all some of those ideas are really, really strong and really wonderful. Yeah, I totally buy into it.”
Wang: “I’d definitely would like to see a Star Trek utopian future. That would be wonderful. For people that are living in this day and age, it just gives them something to look forward to or at least to have hope for, that we can come to a point where we stop fighting on this planet. We stop all the different altercations and violence that still occurs on this planet. Yeah, I do believe it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Join Garrett Wang and Robbie Duncan McNeill at Creation Entertainment’s special virtual meet and greet Wednesday, May 6 at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EST). Click here for more information. Also, catch Wang and McNeill’s new podcast, The Delta Flyers, premiering soon. Click here for more information.
