Value Subtracted
Have you ever considered that the Prime Directive is not only not ethical, but also illogical, and perhaps morally indefensible?
As I understand it, the original plan was that Captain Kim was going to be kind of like Admiral Shelby [Elizabeth Deneny], that was going to be you.
Correct.
So, I was wondering how far down the road did they go with you on that?
It went all the way to my manager saying, “You’ve been cast.” It was originally a three episode arc, which then changed to two, then then changed to one. But I was told by my manager that I needed to be in the LA area in January for a fitting for Picard. So it was there. It had progressed fairly far actually having Harry on that show, pretty darn far. The script was written. Harry’s name was in there… Jeri Ryan said to me, “It’s so funny because we got sent a script, and Harry was in there, and all sudden, the revisions, Harry wasn’t in there.” I was like, “Oh, wow.” So, it went pretty darn far. And I’ll be perfectly honest, being a sci-fi fan, I was depressed for months after that when it didn’t happen. I was literally crying into my own sleeve. [laughs]
I haven’t listened to the audio, so I don’t know what Wang’s tone is like during this story, but…that sounds really shitty. Possibly worse than filming something that later got cut.
Except that Trump-style government will have negative knock-on effects on the Canadian status quo, and people will inevitably blame the current administration for that…
The pair then told the story of how Paul Giamatti was cast as the season 1 villain:
Alex Kurtzman: So this happened because he was doing press for The Holdovers, and when he was asked about the part that he would most want to play, he said, “I want to play a Klingon on Star Trek.”… So we called his agent and said, “Was that a thing he just said, was that a bit?”… And she called back and she said, “He’d love to sit down with you. We got on a Zoom with him and he cried. He was so excited at the prospect of playing in the world of Star Trek and he was talking about how meaningful it was him… It was just one of those moments where you’re like, “Oh, one of the greatest actors in the world, and he really wants to come join us.” So that was pretty amazing.
Noga Landau: He also chose which role he wanted to play. We came to him and we said, “You could be this guy or that guy, or that guy.” And he thought about it and he came back and told us that the part he plays is the one he wanted.
Alex Kurtzman: We thought it was going to be like one episode because his schedule is so busy, and he was like, “No, I want to play the villain.” We’re like, “That’s the whole season.” He was like, “Great, let’s do it!”
Love to see it.
Meaney had always struck me as the ultimate working actor, fairly ambivalent about Star Trek beyond it being a job (which is fine).
It’s hard to imagine him turning down an offer, were it too come in.
I just want to see Janeway’s plan. She has no plan!
