Given what the philosophy of Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman
and Rick Berman was when we were shooting Next Generation,
you see before you 5 actors...
I came in with a better salary than most of them so I had a few problems with
that as far as the people that had already been there for a year were concerned.
A very, very bitter experience for me in many respects.
There were too many people you don't want to be with,
there are too many things in life you don't need,
and so I had decided, and I turned many things down to avoid eh jealousies
and thises and that and the other thing.
Diana Muldaur who was a pretty well known TV actress at the time, that never quite worked.
Why?
Just didn't get on with the cast all that well,
and the character of Doctor Pulaski just never really quite solidified.
Make me look like that, uhm it was, it was a rough show to do.
*sighs* Why do I get the feeling that this was not the time to join this ship.
There was nobody I hated in the beginning.
I'm glad that they brought her back.
Uhm you know, I missed Gates the whole time she was gone.
I think there were people that didn't want me to continue.
Patrick had called me (darling) uhm you know it just hasn't been the same.
Eh would you think of coming back?
And then Rick Berman called me, and then finally I got the offer.
And if you wanna see something about female empowerment *Woos and applause* (French translation)
French actress named Geneviève Bujold.
She had been an Academy Award winning movie star.
French-Canadian, she came and read for us, and she called me the next day,
and she said "I, I've spoken with my children and the answer is oui, oui, I will do it", and I just went.
Let's read her the riot act, and we told her everything, we told her everything.
German at least is you know *speaks German*
I want to know my voice in French talking to Chakotay
*laughter*
Lieutenant.
You know the French? Don't you love them?
Oui, oui.
They never change
*speaks French*
And she finally went to her trailer in tears.
Eh and, and actually quite clever of Rick Berman.
I was so excited, so I called Rick Berman, and he really liked the idea,
but he had this stroke of genius, make it a Borg babe.
Kes is strong, courageous,
eh intelligent, open, curious.
You *Laughter* with the com badge.
Yes?
Can I ask you...
You have a Borg thing on, oh I see *Laughter* Seven of Nine.
No, I have a problem with anybody who's late,
OK.
The decision to eh lose the character of Kes eh was,
it was simultaneous to the decision to bring on the character of Seven of Nine.
Yeah I mean, you know my experience for the most part was just, you know how tight can
they make my uniform look, and how great my tits looked, *Laughter* you know I mean, that
that was basically the, the *Laughter* Those words were actually said to me.
(God) So uhm I found it, you know not a great place to be for me in that, in that environment
He was not respectful of me,
and I know that if I was a man he would've treated me very differently.
Casting the beautiful woman
in a show is always a bitch.
And Rick had put his foot down that I couldn't be recurring, I couldn't come back,
he was man enough that he was killing me.
It brought up a hard time because there were a lot of rumours that, that I was, I was sort
of turning up my nose at television, and turning up my nose at, at, at that job,
and it just certainly wasn't true.
It is a disgrace that individuals are treated, eh are attempted to seperate us, that's you know.
*Applause*
*Woos*
*Applause*
*Woos*
*Applause*