#but i mean armin shimerman. as an actor

[maxwellatoms]

The #1 inspiration for General Skarr was Starscream. I mean... what kind of commander keeps a lieutenant who keeps trying to kill them under permanent employ? Keep your enemies close, I guess...

I get a lot of questions about Herr Star from Preacher. I still haven't read the comics, and the show came out long after I was done on B&M. There IS some DNA from Bullwinkle's Fearless Leader.

Other than that, he was just designed to be a sort of generic fascist who was always so embroiled in his own machinations that he couldn't possibly succeed.

My casting director Kris Zimmerman Salter was the one who came to me with Armin Shimerman. And since I loved him as Quark on Deep Space Nine and could see an analog between Quark and Skarr, he seemed like a natural fit.

Armin is an actor's actor, and even though I think he sometimes felt out of his element in the booth, it was so fun to watch him step in and just absolutely chew scenery. The Evil Con Carne ensemble records were generally a blast.

Skarr did get a blip of a redemption arc in Underfist, but if it had continued he would have continued to ride the line as the most anti of the team's antiheroes.

[azazelsazaleas]

I finished watching through DS9 a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to do a rundown of my thoughts on it. Here goes:

- Oh my god that was fantastic. I really wish it’s given it a fair shake back when it was on the air; I was a dumb teenager who resented it for not being TNG and was going through a weird self-loathing phase where I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was the massive nerd that I am. This seriously lived up to the hype. I may have to do a TNG rewatch because this might just have upstaged it as my favorite 90s Trek.

- Andrew Robinson should’ve been made a full cast member. Ditto Max Grodenchik and Aaron Eisenberg.

- Damar’s transmission at the end of The Changing Face of Evil lives rent-free in my head. I cheered out loud at that.

- One thing the show did fantastically that a lot of other SF/fantasy properties don’t quite get right is that it lands a pitch-perfect balance of “these characters are major, important figures in the larger multinational conflict” and “this conflict is absolutely massive and not everything revolves around the same small group of people.” The fact that Sisko, Worf, Kira, Odo, et al are so important is entirely plausible and it never feels like the writers are trying to gratuitously bring everything back to them.

- That said, I kind of love that Admiral Ross’s leadership approach during the Dominion War eventually consists of doing whatever the hell Sisko tells him to do.

- God, the acting was incredible. Andrew Robinson, Armin Shimerman, Nana Visitor, Marc Alaimo, and Louise Fletcher were real standouts, but everyone was just so damned good.

- Actually, I really need to give special mention to Shimerman. The man went above and beyond to make Quark be something more than a joke character, despite how obvious it was that basically the entire production team wanted him to just be cartoonish comic relief. He worked harder to flesh out his character and show his race as a race of *people* (not just caricatures) than just about any actor playing an alien on Star Trek before him except for maybe Nimoy. Give the man a goddamn Emmy. Don’t believe me? Go rewatch the iconic root beer scene from The Way of the Warrior.

That said: I do have a few criticisms:

- Pretty much all of the (canon) romantic subplots were just…yikes. The only major exception I can think of Sisko/Yates, where they actually seemed to have a healthy dynamic, fall legitimately in love with each other, and generally treat each other like adults in a serious relationship, not bickering teenagers.

- Seriously, Worf/Jadzia got so hard to watch and then the fallout with Ezri was just ugggghhhhhhhhh stop please for the love of god

- Why did the writers need to try to romantically pair off all the female characters? Just, why?

- Kira had more sexual tension with that Romulan lady in half an episode than she did with any of her bucket-of-paint boyfriends over the course of seven years.

- I totally get the behind-the-seasons reasons why things panned out the way they did, but (hot take) I think Dax’s whole arc would’ve worked better if they had killed Jadzia off after the first season or two and brought in Ezri earlier. Jadzia was fun, but she was just too perfect to get many interesting stories and her relationship with Worf felt too much like manufactured drama. Having a trill who didn’t want to be joined, agreed to in a life or death emergency situation, and now has to reckon not only with taking on this symbiotic relationship with no preparation whatsoever but also succeeding this beloved person in the eyes of her loved ones is such a better setup for a character and it’s a pity we didn’t get to see that play out properly.

- Sisko deserved a better conclusion to his story. Give the man his damned house on Bajor and let him raise his kid with Kasidy. He’s more than earned it.

- Next time I rewatch the series, I’m skipping the mirror universe episodes and the ones with the genetically enhanced walking-90s-neurodivergent-stereotypes.

Other random thoughts:

- Dukat’s storyline should’ve ended with him getting killed at the end of Waltz. Either by Sisko, or by deluding himself so thoroughly that he does something suicidal. The pah-wraiths subplot felt like a lazy afterthought (except for the episode where he pretends to be Bajoran and starts fucking Kai Winn) and as much as I liked watching Marc Alaimo act, his story arc was basically over at the end of Sacrifice of Angels….which, incidentally is when Damar actually starts to get interesting.

- I loved the O’Brien must suffer episodes but I thought Hard Time was kind of overrated. Mostly for the plot line with the cellmate; I think I’m a little burned out on seeing stories that have a moral of “deep inside us is a line between humanity and savagery and when pushed to the limit, even the best of us would turn to murder.” It’s been done to death, and it’s really not truthful, at least for many people.

- I think I may have a little bit of a crush on Major Kira. It would never work out if I met someone like that in real life, though. I’m a laid-back, atheist, creative type; she’s a deeply devout former insurgent. Given certain real-life crushes I’ve had recently; maybe I’m just into strong women with big, expressive eyes who wear their hearts on their sleeve and have a spine made of fuckin’ steel. I have no idea what this says about me.

- MORN

- Favorite Episodes: In the Pale Moonlight, The Visitor, Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast, In Purgatory’s Shadow/By Inferno’s Light, In the Cards, Duet, The Wire, Civil Defense, The Magnificent Ferengi, basically the entire Dominion War arc.

[hooved]

undefined

i keep forgetting that i never uploaded this clip to here of the absolute worst sound quark has ever made

[gulducock]

I love... love... love hearing armin shimerman talk about his experience working on bioshock and playing andrew ryan because he very clearly knows exactly what he’s talking about and he’s so passionate about his opinions on the writing and what he did and you just never hear games get talked about like this especially from such veteran actors like him and especially after how long ago it came out like videogames hardly ever get recognition for the writing that gets put into them you never hear people talk about games like how people talk about big important emotional movies but he talks about the story of this game so genuinely like he says the writing is just beautiful and he means it... idk

[littlewalken]

TZN Exclusive Interview: Andy Robinson

On Garak, "Star Trek", "Dirty Harry" & Sci-Fi Idealism

TrekZone Network sat down with Andrew Robinson, who played the Cardassian Garak in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", in Hamburg prior to the "Evening with Andrew Robinson", organized by FKM Events. We talked about Garak's past and future, Robinson's current projects and the idealism of science fiction fans.

TrekZone Network: Is this the first time you are in Hamburg?

Andrew Robinson: No, I was here 12 years ago for a convention with another organizer. So this is my first time back in 12 years, I believe.

Andy Robinson at the FKM Evening in Hamburg

TZN: Long time.

Robinson: It has been a long time. And as they say, a lot of water under the bridge...

TZN: You have been to Germany in the meantime?

Robinson: Yeah, I've been here several times. For one reason or another and in several different places. I have come here for a whole bunch of reasons. Even just as a tourist. But I have never made a film here or anything.

TZN: Your first stint as Garak was in the third episode of "Deep Space Nine". When you first got that role, did you anticipate or did you know that it was going to be a recurring role?

Robinson: No, not at all. Originally, the role of Odo, that Rene Auberjonois played, came down to three of us. Myself, another actor and obviously Rene. Then Rene got the role. Then they asked me to come in a few weeks later to read for this other role, which I thought was just going to be one episode. But it turned out that they were looking for a way to get the character of Doctor Bashir more involved with the show and so they, they were testing a storyline for Doctor Bashir and obviously the storyline was: he meets this older Cardassian, presumably tailor. Is he a spy? Who is he? This very mysterious person, the last Cardassian left on the station.

They wanted to see if there was any chemistry between Siddig and myself as actors. And of course we hit it off immediately. We had a great time with each other. And so it was based on that when they saw that episode, I think it was "Past Prologue", and they saw that we were working well together then they decided to add more episodes of Garak. Which I am eternally grateful for.

TZN: Do you regret that you were not cast as Odo?

Robinson: No, no, no, no. Not at all. As an actor, and an actor of a certain age, after a while you become very philosophical about these things. And genuinely so. Whoever gets the role, that was their role, you cannot feel remorse or try to second-guess or be bitter. And it always is the right actor as far as I am concerned and certainly with Rene it was the right actor. He was wonderful as Odo.

TZN: The part as Garak turned out to be rather substantial as well, of course.

Robinson: O, Garak was one of the best characters, I mean this, he was one of the most enjoyable, fully satisfying characters I have ever played in my life. And the fact that it is the only time in my life, too, as an actor, that I was able to develop a character over a seven-year period, and not be overused. By that I mean often if you are a regular on a series, they run out of things for a character to say and to do, and so the character just ends up repeating himself/herself, and the actions and the plotlines and after a while it becomes what they call the law of diminishing returns. The character becomes reduced. With Garak, because I was not a regular character, I appeared occasionally, I think I was in 39 episodes, and when I appeared, it was for a reason. Almost always it was for a reason, There are a few episodes when I wondered what I was doing there... But that always happens and at least they paid me, so that was fine.

TZN: Is there anything you would have liked to do as Garak on screen? Or any aspect of his character, his personality, that you would have liked to develop?

Robinson as Cardassian Elim Garak

Robinson: They did start this love story. But then they could not find the right actress. And so they had this one actress playing Ziyal and they did not like her, so they had another actress playing Ziyal who looked like my granddaughter, so that made me feel a little perverse. Then they just decided to forget about it. But it would have been wonderful to have had a bittersweet love story, someone who breaks Garak's heart, who tries to unlock the mystery romantically and cannot do it.

It is one of the reasons I wrote the book, to explore that part of Garak, Garak's heart. Because as an actor, you fall in love, well you do not always fall in love with your characters but the ones that you do fall in love with, it is a very deep relationship that you have with the character, and the character does take on a life on its own. Because as an actor, that is what you try to do. You try to transform yourself into this character's life. Obviously, I am not Garak, I am not Hamlet, but you find those places within yourself that can make that transformation.

I was not a "Star Trek" fan when they hired me. I had no idea what the "Star Trek" universe was, who Cardassians were, who Klingons, Romulans, I had no idea about any of that.

TZN: You had never seen anything, never heard about it?

Robinson: I had heard about it but never saw a thing. And a Cardassian? I had no idea what that was.

TZN: Then the makeup was applied...

Robinson: Yeah, right. But they did show me the episode, in "Next Generation", I think David Warner was the first Cardassian or was Marc Alaimo the first?

TZN: Marc Alaimo.

Robinson: Yeah, but it was that two-parter where David Warner's Cardassian character is torturing Picard and I thought, well, that is a really interesting-looking guy. That was the first episodes that peaked my interest. I thought, they deal with substantial things. And the acting was wonderful. Of course, David Warner has always been one of my favorite actors.

So I started writing a diary. As if Garak had a diary and I would write things, and I would make up things about him. And it is what you do, it is what an actor does sometimes for any character. You try to create a story, a life for this character. And when the series was over, I realized there were still things I would have loved to say about Garak and that is why I wrote the book "A Stitch in Time".

TZN: Did you start with the diary when you recognized that Garak would not be a one- or two-episode thing but a recurring role?

Robinson: Yeah, exactly, I think I started in the second year. I also started it when I started being invited to conventions and I realized, after two or three conventions, there were four or five questions people who would always ask me. How long does it take, your makeup... But I thought, would it not be interesting if I if at the conventions did something different. And so what I would do is that I would get up and I would read excerpts from these diaries. It became enormously popular, and that in a sense spawned a lot of things, then as actors we all started saying, well, maybe there is something that we can do rather than just get up and talk about our makeup and so forth. And that unleashed a whole bunch of stuff. Even Siddig and I wrote a play together that we did at several conventions and it was really a rather challenging play, dealing with string theory...

TZN: What was it about? I read just before this interview that you had this play...

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

Robinson: Well, basically Garak and Bashir meet up in this place and it is like, nobody knows, but it looks like a convention with "Star Trek" fans there. And so they had to conduct this very tricky business in front of these people sitting at tables and sitting in chairs watching them. It was very, very, very postmodern. (laughs)

And there was a time when we were working on the play in front of an audience, too. Towards the end, when we finally got it written and got it right, that was when it was at its best but while we were experimenting with it, I think a lot of people fell asleep. (laughs)

Getting back to those diaries, [Michael Scott] co-wrote a book with Armin Shimerman ["The Merchant Prince"] and he said to me, "You should turn this into a book!" and that was when I did. And it was actually the first "Star Trek" book that was written without what they call a ghostwriter.

TZN: Are you thinking of writing another novel about Garak?

Robinson: No. I actually have said everything I could possibly say about Garak. I really have. Plus, if I did, I would then because of the corporate nature of Pocket Books, the Simon and Schuster division that does the "Star Trek" books, I would then have to follow all these other books that have been written about Garak and that does not interest me at all. Because the story I came up with was actually, oddly enough close my story, especially when Garak was a young man.

TZN: You did write another short story though, right? Set after the book.

Robinson: Right.

TZN: That was the last thing we have heard from Garak. In that story, he is not in a very positive state of mind and not in a good place.

Robinson: No.

TZN: So if we could jump forward in time, to a time and place after that, where would we find Garak?

Robinson: Dead. Honestly, because when I wrote that novella, first I was interested in putting - because I live part of the year in Paris -

I was interested in having Garak in Paris and see what that was like. Paris is like a museum now, and I thought that they would have really preserved it in 400 years and it would have become the museum of the world. But when I got Garak to Paris, it became very depressing. That is why I think he was not in a great state. I realized that if I had have written much more about Garak, he probably would have had to die. I do not want to go into why because it is all political and you are not here about politics. (laughs)

TZN: When did the producers tell you about who Garak's parents were?

Robinson: The big reveal was of course with Enabran Tain, who was the head of the Obsidian Order. I know that the mother appeared at one point when they were on Cardassia in that last series of episodes that I was in and that they ended up at Garak's mother's house, hiding. But the story of Garak and his parents really is what I myself put together, in terms of the relationships.

TZN: Did you have a hunch though that the storyline could develop into the direction of Enabran Tain being revealed as Garak's father?

Robinson: O, no! It was a big surprise to me. It was great!

TZN: Just like for the viewers.

Robinson: O, yeah, absolutely! But that is how I felt every time I would get a new script from the writers because the writers loved writing for Garak, that was the pleasure. It was evident that they liked writing for Garak because of the language, the dialogue that they would give him which was so delicious and so much fun and very ironic. One of the things you certainly know is that in America irony is not at the top of our list. As a people we do not really appreciate ironic humor. I think that one of the things that made Garak popular is the fact that he did have a sense of irony. That to everything he said there was a twist and there was always a subtext. And indeed probably he was lying but enjoying it and enjoying the fact that he was lying and seeing how far he could get away with it and who was gullible and who was smart.

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

TZN: There was this one episode with the implant, "The Wire". That embodies everything you just said.

Robinson: Yeah, and that is by far my favorite episode.

TZN: We asked our readers to hand in some questions for you beforehand. One of them is: how long did it take to apply the makeup?

Robinson: At the beginning, it took about four hours, I would say. And then they got it down to about two hours. Towards the end they got more dexterous, thank God, because sitting in the chair for four hours meant that I would have to come in long before dawn and it was just excruciating, it was horrible. Even two hours was bad enough. It is the only thing about Garak that I do not miss at all.

TZN: Did the makeup inhibit you in the way you could express yourself?

Robinson: Well, that is the great, mysterious thing about working with a mask like that. For one thing the technology is very good, there were I think seven prosthetic pieces and they were all very flexible, very pliable and so you put it on and you think, my God, it is like this corpus, you're encased in it. But then you were fine, you could move. You were not, you were not limited the way Rene was limited with Odo because he could not eat, he lost a lot of weight. That is something I should have done!

But he had to take his lunch through a straw and so he could not move much at all because it was a mess. If he marled just a little bit, then he would have to sit in a chair and have to go through a whole process to get it back to that smoothness. That obviously was not my problem. My problem was the claustrophobia that I have, which I experienced actually last night. I went to a bar in Paris with some friends to watch the French lose to the Dutch. (laughter) Really lose. And deservedly so, I mean it. The French should get rid of that coach of theirs because he is awful.

I was at the bar and everybody was crowding in around me, I had to leave at the interval, go home and watch it on my own television. That was the thing about the Garak makeup. That was one thing but then this heavy wig that they put on top of me and then, because they wanted Cardassians to look big, they made the costumes out of the material that you make furniture pads, furniture textiles, and so all the costumes were very heavy and once you zipped them up it was like you were in a sauna, literally.

Actually that is where I lost a little weight, a lot of water weight anyway. When you get under the lights, underneath the makeup and the wig and the costume, there were rivers of sweat, I was soaked underneath. Not very glamorous (laughter) and I certainly did not smell like a flower.

TZN: I have got another reader question here, that touches a different subject. Did you know that there is speculation about Garak's sexuality?

Robinson: Oh, yeah. I started it.

TZN: Really? Then this might be interesting to this reader. He calls himself your gay fan Dominion and he asks a lot of questions like: Why haven't we seen a gay character in "Star Trek"? Have gays become extinct in the 24th century? Do you think there will ever be a gay character in "Star Trek"? Do gays not belong in "Star Trek's" future?

Robinson: O, yeah. There will be gay characters. Certainly now there will be, for one thing, America is still very puritan, we are very squeamish when it comes to sexuality. I remember when I very first played Garak, I played him gay! I thought this would be great! He sees this young man, this young, very attractive doctor on the station, he is lonely, he is the only Cardassian there, this doctor is curious about him, and if you remember, this was a great moment because Sid totally went with it! When he comes up and he puts his hand on his shoulder, Sid did this great thing, it was this sort of an electrical charge that went through him and so I played him totally gay in that episode.

Garak's First Scene

Of course the producers did not actually tell me not to play him gay but then they started writing him a little more macho and more like a Cardassian. But I said, "Listen, one of the great things about Garak is that he is not Gul Dukat, he is not one of those macho, militaristic guys, he is your finesse Cardassian." So we struck a compromise but I was always very clear. I did not get into it in the book. Quite frankly, I was going to go in that direction. I had written a whole thing about Garak's sexuality because I felt that Garak was sort of - talk about bisexual, I think that he was multisexual, essentially that anything that moves is fair game for Garak. He has a voracious sexual appetite.

But as I say, especially on American television you have the odd gay character now but it is all going to be just cosmetic. In terms of commercial television ever getting into real sexuality, that is not going to happen. "Star Trek" is very conservative, there is a conservatism about "Star Trek" that I think "Deep Space Nine" in a sense went against. It defied that conservatism. "Deep Space Nine" was not as black and white as the other "Star Trek" shows. It was different. It was not people in a rocket ship doing one-night stands on a planet to planet to planet, coming in and battling the evil aliens or some kind of monster or whatever. It was a community unto itself on the edge and this is what I loved about the show, every one of the characters on "Deep Space Nine" had a moral dimension about them. Each one of them was in touch with their dark side.

That episode "In the Pale Moonlight", when Garak introduces Captain Sisko to the concept of realpolitik, that okay, if you want to get rid of the Romulan threat, what you do is, you kill them. And you kill them in a not very nice way. So you just eliminate your enemy. Of course that is not fair play, that is not the American way. I was surprised, I loved that episode because it was very mature in that sense. It said you have to grow up, this is the world you live in now. And of course the world we live in now is very morally ambiguous to say the least.

I rambled, I am sorry. We went away from sexuality but I think there has to be more gay characters. I do not know what this movie is going to be like but this movie I believe is about Starfleet academy?

A gay Sulu? According to Robinson an interesting idea

TZN:It is a prequel. It is not entirely set on Starfleet academy but shows the young crew in their early years getting together.

Robinson: Right. For instance, I wonder, George Takei, who has come out, who is an openly gay man, and actually now I think he and his partner are going to get married since the California Supreme Court has now finally legalized gay marriage. But I wonder where they are going to go with his character in this prequel. It would be very interesting.

TZN: You did some work behind the camera as well. You directed I believe an episode of DS9. How was that for you, the experience to suddenly tell your colleagues what to do?

Robinson: Yes, right. It is funny, it was very different getting on the other side of the camera and not just working with the other actors, I mean they were fine. But it was the first episode I really had a lot of trouble with because it was my first episode ever directing something. And of course when you are directing "Star Trek" you have the added dimension, the added complication of the special effects. Although they have great special-effects people and you just get out of the way and let them do their work but still you are always trying to visualize what the picture looks like as a director.

But I must say that directing the "Star Trek" episodes really in a sense changed my life because it was the first time I started directing. From there I went on to a lot more directing, mainly theater because I have always been more of a theater person than a film person. And that really gave me the courage to continue in that direction as a director which I have and which has actually led to my current position. I am a fulltime teacher now. I run an acting program at the University of Southern California. And that all came out of directing.

TZN: You have been an actor, you have been a director, you have written a book, actually is there anything artistic you would still like to do? Singing maybe?

Robinson: No, I do not think so. Actually, it is true, it is interesting you should say that. I would actually love to do a musical. I really would love to do a musical, you are absolutely right. I would love to do one of these great musicals. But I still go back and forth. I am going to do a play this summer in San Francisco as an actor. I will continue to direct. I do not know how much longer I will run this program because I created this actor-training program and that was exciting.

I am going to be actually talking about that today. I work with young actors in terms of how does one train to be an actor, what is it that one does? I am being able to put some of my own ideas and thoughts about what actor training is into a coherent program that goes over three years, that trains professional actors. That has been very exciting. That is part of who I am but I think the territory of being an actor is that you do reinvent yourself from time to time. You have to reinvent yourself from time to time. Not to change, you really have to transform because that is the business.

TZN: In your career, you played many roles, and you guest starred in "Bonanza".

Robinson: No, you could not possibly remember! That is incredible. No, o my God, how could you... That is amazing. Yeah, that was the very last season of "Bonanza", too. And I think it was my first work in television.

TZN: How was it to play with such very famous actors like Lorne Greene?

Robinson: Well, see, it was very nice. They are household names but I had just come off from doing my first film with Clint Eastwood. So playing with Clint Eastwood was like playing with God. And then everyone else, they are wonderful actors, but still, my first film experience was the "Dirty Harry" film and that was extraordinary. I must say I enjoyed doing "Bonanza" because it was a show that had gone on forever. I helped kill it because that was the last season... Having the experience of doing "Dirty Harry" which was a feature film, that interested me a lot more than doing television.

Andy Robinson in "Dirty Harry"

TZN: You did very many TV series. The list of your guest appearances just goes on and on and on.

Robinson: Yeah, I did and most of the time I was the villain. That was courtesy of "Dirty Harry". After I did "Dirty Harry" nobody could see me as playing anything but the villain.

TZN: Is there any of these series that you would have liked to be on as one of the lead actors or main cast?

Robinson: In America, there is a series that just ended. I do not know if it is here, I do not know if it has come here. They did five years of it. HBO has these. I do not know if you know Home Box Office? It is a cable network in America. They had these series, "The Sopranos" was their flagship, their famous series. But they had another series called "The Wire". Have you ever heard of "The Wire"?

TZN: The title sounds familiar but that is all.

Robinson: It is interesting because you had me talking about that episode of "Deep Space Nine" that is called "The Wire", that was my favorite episode. Well, this series, "The Wire", is probably the best television series I have ever seen in my life. It was a brilliant series that took the city of Baltimore and it investigated the city of Baltimore in a dramatic series format on every level from drug dealers to police to schools to unions and it was an amazing series. I do not know how it got done because in America we are not big on socially-relevant thematic. We want our entertainment to be pure and uncluttered with things we have to think about. But this was a brilliant series and I, every time I watched the series, thought, o my God, I would love to be on that series! That was one of the few things I ever watched where I felt that way. I hope it comes here, I am sure it will come here. It has to. If it does, you must watch it because it is extraordinary.

TZN: I am afraid we have to wrap up already. One last question: Is there any question that you would really particularly badly like to answer but have never been asked?

Robinson: Wow. I have to say I think I have been asked every question that I can possibly imagine. Short of questions that I would prefer not to get into. No, I do not think that there is. I do not think that there is at all. I find that "Star Trek" fans for the most part, especially in Europe, are relatively sophisticated. I think that there is an idealism about following a series like "Star Trek", especially in this world.

Can we imagine ourselves projected into 24th or 25th century or wherever and still functioning. Obviously, it is weird. As you said earlier, here we are, four- five hundred years later and where have all the gay people gone? Where have all the people of color gone in a sense. That has always been something. What has indeed happened to poverty and what has happened to racism and fundamentalism and terrorism and all the things that bedevil us. I really do hope that science fiction continues to evolve and the way certain writers have challenged themselves to think about what happens to all of these social issues in the future and how we project solutions for them or perhaps not solutions but perhaps just accommodations, how do we learn to live with each other because in the end I think that that is what the "Star Trek" series perhaps offers its best insights about. Then I think that it is also great dramatic material which is the great question how do we learn how to live with each other without violence and without predatory behavior.

TZN: That ends this interview on a very thoughtful note, I think. Thank you very much.

Robinson: It was a pleasure, thank you, it has been great.

[chacusha]

DS9 Companion liveblogging (3/14)

From 2x01 “The Homecoming” to 2x13 “Armageddon Game”:

“Quark’s alter-ego, Armin Shimerman, was delighted to discover that Season 2 would establish him as quite ‘a ladies’ man,’ with liaisons of one sort or another in ‘Rules of Acquisition’ and ‘Profit and Loss’ and numerous flirtations in between. ‘I believe Quark’s had more relationships than anyone else on the show,’ Shimerman notes with pleasure.” This is cute. I like how no one is a bigger booster of Quark and Ferengi than Shimerman <3

On Bajoran fashion: “Kira’s recreational garb in the episode [2x02 “The Circle”], and also her outfit from the mission to the Hutet labor camp in ‘The Homecoming,’ represent a deliberate shift in Bajoran costuming enacted by Costume Designer Robert Blackman. ‘The color palette remained the same, the rust, green, and gold earth tones, but the textures changed,’ explains Blackman. ‘During the first season, the clothes on background Bajorans were flat-finished,’ a reflection of what the producers liked at that time. But as the show moved into its second season, says Blackman, ‘they felt that the clothing needed to have a rougher texture, that the wardrobe looked too sleek, like something you’d see at the Sherman Oaks Galleria’—a place made notorious in the 1980s by Frank Zappa’s satirical song ‘Valley Girl.’ Thus, Blackman chose to use loose knits, crochets, and ‘things over things’ for Kira’s off-duty clothes, ‘so that you would get a kind of buildup of texture on a Bajoran background.’ Blackman notes that the shift in costume design had synergy with changes in the look of the station’s Promenade. ‘It became more bazaarlike, with banners and more neon. It had been too utilitarian, too perfect.’”

For 2x04 “Invasive Procedures”: I didn’t realize the woman guest star in this episode also played the scientist in “Little Green Men.” And Tim Russ was one of the Klingons in this episode!

Interesting notes here on how this episode reveals sides of the characters that hadn’t been seen before: Bashir showing genuine affection for Jadzia; Sisko handling a hostage situation and in an up-close fight; Jadzia young and vulnerable and afraid without the Dax symbiont in her; Quark going far beyond the harmless criminal schtick he normally has and Kira drawing a line with him.

It surprises me that 2x05 “Cardassians” is really Garak’s SECOND appearance. He appears in the second ep of season 1 and then disappears for a whole season?! He becomes such a regular part of the cast and his closeness with Bashir is so well established and convincing that I feel like I falsely remembered him being around more than he actually was (onscreen).

I feel a bit dumb but I didn’t realize that “laying pipe” had, like, a non-sexual meaning? Ira Behr: “How do we take Garak and lay pipe?” Me: Oh my.

Anyway, interesting note that this is the first episode to establish a link between the Cardassian characters, Garak and Dukat.

I like this note on Garak learning to see Cardassian politics through Bashir’s eyes:

“When offers of wine and women fail to win over Kot, Quark appeals to Odo for help. Although the constable enjoys seeing Quark squirm, he agrees to look into the situation.” - More suggestive Quodo lmao.

I love everything about this:

The episode synopsis in this book says “Odo had become even more suspicious a short time later when he spotted Pallra kissing Dukat.” I got confused because I was like, "I don’t remember THAT happening." Looks like it was in the script and probably filmed but was cut at the editing stage (I’m guessing):

Odo comes out of a turbolift... moves down the corridor... stops at a corner as he hears voices: PALLRA (O.S.) Goodnight. GUL DUKAT (O.S.) Trust me. You have nothing to worry about. Odo peeks around the corner to see Gul Dukat is standing at Pallra's door... kissing her... Odo moves back behind the wall, reacting. ANGLE - ON DUKAT AND PALLRA as they break their kiss, Dukat smiles and she goes inside... he walks toward Odo, turns the corner and as he passes where Odo used to be, there is now a picture on the wall of Dukat and it's crooked... he walks by it, then stops, looks curiously at the picture, straightens it and leaves.

(Interesting that this demonstrates Odo using his shapeshifting for the first time to discreetly observe people.)

Interesting notes on 2x09 “Second Sight” about why the episode was unexpectedly weak. Interesting because I also thought that episode was weak but I wasn’t sure why. The reasons listed in the book are that they changed the love plotline from Bashir to Sisko, and the terraformer character ended up changing quite a bit and eventually ended up more eccentric and egotistical rather than tortured. The first one I agree changes the story quite a bit because I feel like Sisko is a bit too sensible to get much attached to a nice woman he meets for like a few seconds at a time, but Bashir would probably be intrigued and easily drawn in. I think the episode is an important one for Sisko, though, because it indicates he’s started to heal from Jennifer’s death, but other than that, the emotional stakes just seemed off/not there.

Interesting notes on all the Trek actor connections there are in the 2x10 “Sanctuary” episode.

“But somehow, aside from some positive comments about the racquetball sequences, the episode [2x11 “Rivals”] seems to have struck out with both viewers and crew. ‘Our e-mail fans really liked the tight suit that Bashir wore in the matches.’ Robert Hewitt Wolfe grins. ‘They liked that a lot.’” - lmao

I kind of liked "Rivals," though? It's not a very memorable episode if I'm being honest, but I liked seeing a character who is as slimy as Quark and the Bashir/O'Brien one-sided rivalry was comedy gold, and it's an important episode for establishing their relationship?

I did not know that the swindler character in this episode was the same race as Guinan, and originally intended to be her son! Also, he was originally conceived as a recurring rival for Quark, but the competitive dynamic didn’t really gel between the two so that was dropped. Probably okay, though, since we eventually got Brunt instead.

Interesting how there originally was the idea for Rene Auberjonois to play both Odo and Mora, and for Armin Shimerman to play both Quark and Ishka (lol), but in both cases the time-consuming makeup procedure made that intractable.

Not much to say about 2x13 “Armageddon Game” except it’s another good Bashir and O’Brien episode and Rosalind Chao is a great actress.

[aion-rsa]

Mass Effect: Best Star Trek References and Easter Eggs

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Look, it’s not exactly a secret that Mass Effect has a little Star Trek in its DNA. It’s a franchise all about assembling a crew comprised of humans and aliens as you explore the furthest reaches of space and try your best to romance a few of those humans and aliens. It’s safe to say someone on the Mass Effect development teams watched an episode or two of Star Trek.

So while Mass Effect is, in some ways, a giant tribute to Star Trek and several other notable sci-fi works, there are a few ways that the Mass Effect games reference Star Trek that you may not have spotted unless you’re a hardcore Star Trek fan who also explored the furthest reaches of Mass Effect‘s galaxy.

From suspicious lines of dialog to familiar voices, these are some of the best Star Trek references and Easter eggs you’ll find in the Mass Effect trilogy.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Borg and The Geth

As a race of networked AI who utilize a “hivemind” system and have to deal with the occasional dissenter, there are clearly similarities between Mass Effect‘s Geth and Star Trek‘s Borg that can’t be ignored.

Having said that, some fans have pointed out that the designs and philosophies of the Geth could also be a nod to Battlestar Galactica‘s Cylons. It should also be noted that Mass Effect‘s Reapers are often treated as a mysterious galactic threat similar to how the Borg were described in early TNG episodes.

The Thorian and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan’s Ceti Eels

In Mass Effect, you’ll encounter a sentient plant known as a Thorian. If this almost slug-like creature with the ability to use painful spores to control people’s minds seems oddly familiar, that’s likely because it’s almost certainly a reference to the Ceti Eels that Khan used to control people in one of Star Trek 2‘s most memorable scenes.

In fact, there’s a memorable moment in Mass Effect when Fai Dan shoots himself after ignoring a Thorian order to kill Shepard. It’s an almost exact recreation of a Wrath of Khan scene in which Captain Terrel uses a phaser on himself after disobeying Khan and the influence of the Ceti Eels.

Cerebus and Section 31

In Star Trek: Deep Space 9, we learn there’s a special section of Starfleet known simply as Section 31. They’re kind of a “wetworks” organization that has operated with and without Star Fleet’s support over the years. Through it all, they claim to promote “security” through whatever means necessary.

The Cerebus group in Mass Effect serve a similar purpose, with the biggest difference being that Cerebus has long been a kind of “splinter” group that operates independently to protect human interest (allegedly) on a galactic scale whereas Section 31 did seemingly operate with Starfleet’s support (at least for a time).

The Normandy’s Poker Table

While it’s a bit of a shame you don’t really get to do much with the poker table on the Normandy, the fact there’s a poker table so prominently featured on a spaceship has to be a callback to the poker table frequently used by the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Actually, TNG‘s poker table was such an important part of the ship (at least to key members of the crew) that it was even the centerpiece of the final scene in TNG‘s last episode, “All Good Things…”

Kenneth Donnelly is (Accidentally?) a Scotty Tribute

As a spaceship engineer with a heavy Scottish accent, it’s easy to assume that Mass Effect‘s Kenneth Donnelly was designed to be an obvious homage to Star Trek‘s Montgomery “Scotty” Scott.

However, Mass Effect level designer Dusty Everman has previously stated that the similarities between those two weren’t planned from the start and really only came to life as the result of voice actor John Ullyatt’s performance choices and a bit of coincidence. Actually, Everman (or someone convincingly posing as him once upon a time) stated that Donnelly’s accent was based on his wife’s love of Ewan McGregor and that the original plan was for female Shepard players to be able to romance him.

“Yes! Exhilarating, Isn’t It?”

One of Mass Effect‘s better Star Trek references happens when Shepard warns a Krogan that the area around them is collapsing and the Krogan replies “Exhilarating, isn’t it?”

The same line is spoken by Christopher Lloyd in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock under spiritually similar circumstances. Lloyd even portrays a Klingon in the film, and the Krogan have been called a Klingon-like race.

Various Star Trek Actors Voice Characters in the Mass Effect Franchise

If you’ve ever wondered just how much Star Trek influenced Mass Effect, look no further than Mass Effect‘s voice actor cast list.

Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman, Keith Szarabajka, Dwight Schultz…the Mass Effect cast is packed with actors arguably best known for their roles in various Star Trek series and films. Michael Dorn (who famously portrayed Worf in Star Trek: TNG) even voices a Krogan in Mass Effect 2.

Read more

Games

Mass Effect’s Hidden Kirk/Picard Morality System

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Star Trek: Judgment Rites Was the Final Season The Original Series Deserved

By Matthew Byrd

“This is… it’s green?”

While visiting the Dark Star lounge, Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard receives an alien drink and remarks “This is… it’s green?” The line is a clear callback to a Star Trek: TOS episode called “By Any Other Name” in which Scotty picks up a strange bottle and makes the same comment.

In fact, Data says a similar line in the TNG episode “Relics” while pouring a mysterious green drink for…Scotty.

Mordin Solus and Data Have Similar Taste in Music

Mordin Solus’ love of music isn’t just one of the best Mass Effect companion’s most loveable attributes, it’s an apparent nod to Data: the also hyper-intelligent, also slightly detached Star Trek: TNG character who also loves to sing.

Actually, Solus and Data seem to share an appreciation for Gilbert and Sullivan as the two sing the duo’s greatest hits in their respective series.

“Goodbye Little Wing” and Deanna Troi

Matriarch Benezia isn’t just one of the more memorable side characters in the original Mass Effect; she’s another one of those characters in the Mass Effect franchise you may have not realized was voiced by a Star Trek alumni. Yes, Benezia is played by none other than Deanna Troi actress Marina Sirtis.

Best of all, there’s a moment in the first Mass Effect when Benezia says “Goodbye little wing, I have always been proud of you” shortly before dying. It’s an odd phrase that might make a little more sense when you realize that Troi’s mother was always calling her “little one” in TNG.

“When Your World Seems Hollow, We Help You Touch the Sky”

This one has to be in the running for the honor of “most obscure” Star Trek reference in any Mass Effect game.

In Mass Effect‘s Bring Down The Sky DLC, there is a radio shack located between two fusion torches. Go inside it, and you’ll find a log filled with unused radio promo spots. The script for one of those spots reads “If you are feeling hollow, we can help you touch the sky.” What is that supposed to mean?

Well, it seems to be a nod to a Star Trek: TOS Season 3 episode called “For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky.” In that episode, an old man living atop a mountain tells the Enterprise crew “the world is hollow and I have touched the sky.”

The Systems Alliance Logo Looks Very Familiar…

Mass Effect‘s Systems Alliance is an Earth coalition responsible for representing the interests of humans in Citadel space. There are obviously many organizations in several notable sci-fi works with similar responsibilities, but there’s little doubt that the Systems Alliance is intended to refer to Star Trek‘s Starfleet.

In fact, the Systems Alliance logo bears a strong resemblance to the Starfleet logo from later Star Trek series and films. It’s not exactly a 1:1 copy, but it’s impossible not to spot the similarities once you start looking for them.

“Karora is Essentially a Great Rock in Space”

You’ll find another surprisingly subtle Star Trek reference in Mass Effect 2 when you request more information on a planet named Karora. The Normandy’s computer will inform you that “Karora is essentially a great rock in space, tidally locked to Amada.”

As it just so happens, Spock describes the Regula planet that the Enterprise crew encounters in Star Trek 2 as “essentially a great rock in space.” Maybe the wording is common enough to be a coincidence, but given all the other clear Star Trek references in Mass Effect, it feels like an intentional tribute.

The post Mass Effect: Best Star Trek References and Easter Eggs appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

my takeaways from what we left behind

1. the actors really understood their characters in ways that I don’t know if the writers always did. with the exception I feel of Siddig and Meaney who didn’t get to talk about their characters in depth (all Siddig really got was to say a bit about how people disliked his character to begin with + the stuff about Ezri I don’t agree with and I’d have loooved to have heard a bit about O’Brien from Meaney’s pov, his moving through his trauma, etc through his friendship with Bashir but oh weeell).

2. this became even more obvious to me when I saw the outline for the hypothetical episode the writers did. it feels like it came less from a place of character and more “what would be most surprising,” which isn’t how I write at allllll. that being said it was an outline for a first episode, so things could always reveal themselves differently in a hypothetical season

3. Andy Robinson. that’s it

4. Nana Visitor. also that’s it.

5. no hold on, on Andy, I want to personally thank him for having every one of his lines be iconic, and for constantly mentioning Julian, what a legend (also he seems like he’d be up for comin back, just saying. all that enthusiasm...)

6. Nana Visitor clearly haaaaated the “gul dukat and Kira’s mother” plotline and I feel vindicated on this also, because it felt cheap, badly written to the point of offensiveness (women forced to have sex with their oppressors being to blame is not a take I expected to see on this show)

7. I thought Nana mentioning that it would have been ineresting to see Kira start a relationship with a Cardassian (just not gul dukat), because uh yeah, hard same, esp post-dominion war. my first gut instinct was how she and damar really had a great dynamic but a. he died and b. i want kira to be with a woman, so now I have headcanons about her and Garak continuing their friendship (begun then imo) and her helping out, cos she becomes idk, main diplomat between bajor and cardassia and she through him and her work she meets this great cardassian gal...

8. everything Avery Brooks. especially Brooks basically adopting Lofton. fuck. i’m glad they were so honest about his contributions to the show, as actor, director, bringing in his culture and with that the casting of more black actors and creatives. (fully can feel the racism is still palpable in particularly that studio head guy who said that the look of beard and bald was “street” like dude... c’mon).

Also he directed the episode with Lenara and Jadzia. A true icon.

9. Rene Auberjonois talked about his obituary. Aron Eisenberg cried about how much this show meant to him. RIP to you both, the show wouldn’t have been as fantastic without all you gave to it.

10. Ira acknowledged they didn’t do enough for the lgbt+ community, although I don’t think he went far enough in that acknowledgement (he didn’t actually say “lgbt+ or queer” he just said sexual identity), probably because he doesn’t know much about the community really? which to my mind feels like, as well-meaning as he is, what’s needed is definitely a new guard of writers if he’s indicative of the more liberal of tv right now

11. the ending was perfect. i was fully prepared and half-way to tears and then that fucking quartet??? this cast is really perfect (and I haven’t even MENTIONED armin shimerman inviting the ferengi-crew to his place or how funny he was) and I’m so glad they still have so much love for each other and their work

[gplusbfics]

1994 Interview All About Garak & Andrew Robinson

I’ve seen this great interview posted a bunch of times online, but it’s alway seems to be as graphic scans, which I have a hard time reading, so when I actually got my hands on DS9 magazine Vol. 9, 1994, I was psyched. I could read it AND I could scan it! So here it is, with all the text, plus photos. I’ll be posting the photos all separately afterward, including a few that don’t fit. Enjoy!

I love Garak and Andy so much. Also, I love that this interview is all after Season 2 (and I believe before Season 3 aired), so you have Robinson saying things like “I wish I’d get to do more plots with Rene and Avery!” and “It’s going to really interesting when Garak’s secrets come out!” He he. It’s really zero surprise he wound up writing a book. Or that the book would be well written -- he uses great words in the interview, just popping in stuff like “apotheosis.” 

-Wendy 

According to his former superior in the Obsidian Order, Garak has a "rare talent for obfuscation." The same, fortunately, cannot be said of the man who plays him, Andrew Robinson. Given the chance, he willingly expounds upon the delights of playing this charming, yet devious, Cardassian. 

"This role has been quite surprising and wonderful," Robinson says. "The way the character is progressing is a delight for me. When I auditioned and got the part, I had no idea that it was going to be a recurring character. They've been writing really interesting things for Garak; each time that he appears, there's something more to play." 

What first attracted him to the role was "the mystery about the character. At the same time, there was also this wonderfully refined and urbane intelligence about Garak. Not only did he have a secret, but his secrets were very deep and potentially very interesting. I don't know where it's going from here, but I look forward to the day --- if the day ever does come -- when the truth about Garak emerges. I have a feeling that the secrets he has are going to be a great deal of fun to play." 

Because he didn't receive any back ground from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writers or producers, "I just created my own, so I had something to work from," says Robinson. "I went for the approach of something that was reptilian, someone with cold blood, who would have that same deliberate, measured style. In terms of mystery, I played 'I've got a secret.' The writers and producers have been taking what I'm doing and building from that, as well as whatever they have in mind for Garak, which really is the best. Very few shows do this. Very few."

Not surprisingly, Robinson's least favorite aspect of this role is enduring the makeup. "That's the worst part of it. Garak is a three-and-a-half hour makeup job. Sometimes I'll have a 2 or 3 a.m. call! There are seven prosthetic appliances that they put on, including the neck. It teaches you a lot of patience," he admits. "Once I'm in it -- and these are long days I put in on the set, 14 to 16-hour days sometimes --- I just have to 'Zen' out. Otherwise, if I start getting cranky, then I'm done; I can't act or do anything. I really have to move into an almost beatific state. I have lost weight, though; that's one good thing!" he adds, laughing, before relating a more serious makeup-related tale.

"When the earthquake hit in January, it was 4:30 a.m. in Los Angeles, and I was already in the makeup chair, along with Armin Shimerman [Quark] and a couple other actors. It was pretty bizarre: this earthquake hits, all the power goes out, and all these aliens in varying stages of makeup are milling about in the darkness! People like Armin and Ed Wiley, who was playing this Cardassian, couldn't get through on the phone to their families, so they just jumped into their cars -- Armin in his Quark makeup and Ed with his Cardassian makeup on -- and drove through the pre-dawn streets of Los Angeles. I can only imagine what the other motorists saw -- I think that would be more bracing than a cup of coffee!"

Robinson made his Deep Space Nine debut in the series' second-to-air episode, "Past Prologue." There, "plain and simple Garak" made first contact with Dr. Bashir (who immediately suspected him of being a Cardassian spy) and helped foil a fanatical Bajoran terrorist's plot. Interacting with the Klingon sisters Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh) proved to be some of Robinson's favorite moments. "That was just a gas!" he exclaims. "We had a great time doing those scenes; I hope we can do that again." 

Garak next appeared in "Cardassians," where he was instrumental in uncovering a scandal concerning the abandonment of Cardassian orphans on Bajor after the war. "The best thing about that was the scene where he and Bashir go to Bajor and run into the orphans. We learned a little more about their culture, that children without parents have no status in Cardassian society, so they just abandoned them. The fact that Garak was faced with this, and realized that there is something very basically wrong about it, was great."

Although both Bashir and viewers alike still wonder which side (if any) Garak owes his allegiances to, Robinson thinks that "Garak's a good guy," and cites the second season episode "Profit & Loss" as "the turning point. When I got that script, I thought, 'Oh, I guess this is the end of Garak,' as I was reading. Then, I got to the end and he decides, no, he's not going to kill Professor Lang and her student dissidents, nor turn them in. He has the change of heart and lets them go. He was faced with that moral dilemma, and for most Cardassians, there would have been no dilemma; they would have just done what they were expected to do." The actor hastens to add, however, "That's not to say that the man doesn't have an... ambiguous past. He's very complicated, very ambiguous, and there's no doubt that there are things in his past that aren't very nice. He is, after all, Cardassian!" 

One of Robinson's greatest pleasures on Deep Space Nine, he says, has been working with Siddig El Fadil, who plays Dr. Bashir. "Siddig and I get along so well, and we have become very good friends from this show. The chemistry works out beautifully, where you have this older, reptilian mystery man who isn't what he seems to be, and this young innocent. It's easy to see what Bashir's getting from Garak: a political education. He's learning about the byzantine, labyrinthine subtleties and intricacies that go on in the station. 

"It's less clear, but equally strong, to see what Garak is getting from Bashir," he continues. "Bashir is a very decent person, a veru moral man, a responsible scientist with a soul. I think Garak is learning some of this, becoming socialized. I don't mean 'humanized,' because that would be a 'specist' thing to say. He's gaining a certain sense of compassion, a certain morality and that's very touching-that's what I love about the relationship." 

That being said, Robinson would also like to see Garak interact more with the rest of the Deep Space Nine crew. "It's a great company! I would love to do more with Rene Auberjonois; he and I have known each other forever. I think they'll have me do more with Quark this season, because we had some really nice scenes together in 'Profit & Loss.' Armin and I worked together just before DS9, in a production of Richard II. Also, I would love to do much more with Avery Brooks. He's a very powerful actor who has a lot of wonderful inner strength."

Garak's next two appearances, "Crossover" and "The Wire," showed two very different sides of the Cardassian. In the Mirror Universe, lntendent Kira Nerys rules Deep Space Nine, with Garak as her menacing second in command. "That wasn't hard to do," Robin.son says, "but that was interesting because I found the negative image to Garak: that Nazi, that typical Cardassian persona of the oppressor, the fascist, the totalitarian. There are no secrets to this man -- and no hiding any from him; he's just into sheer power. [The real] Garak is not into pure power at all; that's not his agenda! Now when I come back to Garak, I have more information about him, and he will be a deeper character as a result." 

Robinson's favorite episode to date, "The Wire" raised many questions about Garak's past and provided very few concrete answers. When an endorphin-releasing implant in Garak's brain begins malfunctioning, Dr. Bashir goes to great lengths to save his friend, ultimately discovering that Garak, among other things, used to be part of the Obsidian Order, a secret information-gathering Cardassian police force renowned for their brutal tactics. "'The Wire' was a dream," Robinson notes, "the type of episode I would like to do -- well, not all the time, because I would die! -- but frequently. That's the kind of episode that does indeed stretch my 'acting muscles,' because it demanded that I go inside myself and pull things out that perhaps didn't want to come willingly."

Originally a New England native, this "man behind the mask" recalls that "as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an actor. Not necessarily as a profession, but I always wanted to act. When I was 10, I went to this school in Rhode Island that had a wonderful drama program. It was run by a man who became my mentor. He was very supportive and helpful, and I just did plays and plays and plays." 

Robinson describes his college days similarly. "I had an art history teacher who encouraged me to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship to study acting in London. I did, and I got it against all odds," he explains. "When I was studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, I was doing a student production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull; I was playing Constantine, this young man with a lot of troubles, and I had -- I can only call it an apotheosis -- this very deep emotional experience. That's when I decided I would act for a living." 

This led to several years of stage acting until Robinson landed his first movie role as the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry. "I liked Clint Eastwood," he says, "but for me, the excitement was working with the director, Don Siegel. He was an amazing man, the best director I've ever worked with. Basically, he taught me whatever I now know about filmmaking. The character I played was very underwritten and very under-realized in the original script; it was only because Don Siegel was the kind of director he was that he hired me and said, 'OK, give me the character.' At the time, I had no idea the kind of chance he was taking. It just blows my mind!"

With his film career established, Robinson appeared in all manner of movies, TV shows and plays. One of his most visible roles came in an ABC TV movie, Liberace. Portraying the flamboyant entertainer, Robinson says, "was a great experience. It ended up being one of the best things I've ever done. You see, the art of acting, for me, is quite liberating. There's a lot of freedom have when you're behaving in the skin of another person, so to speak. That, to me, is the most interesting thing about being an actor . Also, I never wanted a nine-to-five job, and I'm grateful for the fact that I've been able to fashion a career where I work at jobs and a job doesn't work me." 

Robinson first attracted the notice of SF and horror aficionados with his work in Clive Barker's debut film, Hellraiser. "That was a wonderful experience," he says fondly. "For one thing, the character chance to play two characters, basically, the good and evil sides of the same person, was a thrill. The good brother, Larry, was quite repressed, and behind that repression was his evil brother Frank. 

"Also, working with Clive Barker -- who's a genuinely mad, eccentric genius ---was a lot of fun. It was his first film; he really didn't know much about filmmaking, so he really had to rely on people around him who had more experience, and he was open to that. It became a genuinely collaborative experience, and there was a lot of creativity flowing on the set, which doesn’t always happen.” 

His next genre appearance came in Child's Play 3, in which the evil doll Chucky arrives at a military school and terrorizes the cadets. Robinson played the sadistic barber, Sergeant Botnick, who gets a fatal shave from the diminutive killer. "A friend of mine, Jack Bender, was directing it and asked me to come in and do this character," Robinson remembers. "Jack's a very bright guy, and he saw something that I couldn't see at first reading. Then, we got working on it, and what happened was one of those fortuitous occasions when I made something really interesting, a character who was like nothing I had ever seen or done before. Sergeant Botnick the barber usually goes totally unnoticed, but it’s a piece of work that I'm very proud of." 

Similar circumstances led him to Trancers Ill as Colonel Daddy Muther . "Again, it was a friend of mine, Courtney Joyner, who wrote and directed it. I did it because he asked me to. He had written the part for me, and because he was a friend, we were able to create the character as we were shooting it. Unfortunately, the shooting circumstances were very pressured because resources were very limited. It was an extremely low-budget film, and also Courtney's first ." Robinson got along very well with his fellow cast, however. "Tim Thomerson, who played the lead, is terrific, a very funny, lovely guy. I enjoyed working with him a lot." 

While lately he has been appearing in projects with a definite SF slant, Robinson says he doesn’t have any one favorite genre of acting . "One of the things I appreciate about myself -- if I may say that -- is the range I have. It's something I've developed consciously, because I really love playing different kinds of characters. For example, in this British farce by Alan Bennett called Habeas Corpus, I played a guy who sells and adjusts false breasts! It was a funny, crazy role, just knock-down British humor. And in the middle of it, I went back to Rhode Island to do my one-man show, which is a very serious meditation based on if Jesus had kept a diary. This person/actor finds the diary, shares it with the audience, and ends up portraying different aspects of Jesus and His life. It's that kind of contrast that turns me on as an actor." 

To Robinson, the most enjoyable aspect of playing a recurring character like Garak is the chance "to explore the character from various angles, so that you go from 'plain and simple Garak' to an episode like 'The Wire,' which goes into a very deep, personal story about the man. You get the kind of information about a character that you rarely ever get in a single episode, or indeed a single film. The writers don't sit down with us and say, 'OK, this is where your character is going,' and I rather like that . It's a surprise every time I get a script!" 

In future episodes of Deep Space Nine, Andrew Robinson feels that viewers will eventually learn the truth about Garak. "Right now, all we do know is that he's in exile and he misses his homeland very much," he notes. "I know the producers have really become attached to the character, which means more and more of a commitment to me. For instance, this season I will be on the show several times. I think eventually, by the time the show ends, we will know where Garak is coming from. Perhaps we won't understand him completely in terms of his motives, or the 'why' of Garak, but I certainly think we will understand the 'what' of Garak, what he's doing on the station."

Was this not an awesome article and interview, or what??? -Wendy