One of the saddest duties I have ever had to perform is now ahead of me.
And fortunately we had Gene Roddenberry still with us, so eh and he was always available
to ask questions, and uhm he was you know, he gave us just a huge uhm, uhm reign to, to
do whatever we wanted, and make this uhm make this ours.
So it worked out.
The only reason I didn't kill myself as a teenager was that I didn't know how.
You wanted me.
We're here together to honour our friend and comrade Lieutenant Natasha Yar.
Well first of all let me just apologise eh to everyone for what I'm going to say somewhere
in this interview because surely I will offend somebody.
I, I think the studio just didn't want us to be that close,
they figured if, if, and this is one thing that...
They wanted control.
They wanted control, and divide and conquer, if they keep us apart they can do, but if
we get together, talk, we exchange you know what our contracts are, and stuff like that,
and they didn't, they didn't want that.
And, and, I mean I think like Brent, I knew Brent from before in New York, and eh Patrick
I met uhm, he had come down to see the play, so there were a couple of people I knew.
I was looking for a pilot, I had come to L.A. You know I had done uhm, I'd done some broadway
shows, and some off-broadway shows, and eh I came out to L.A. with a production, eh of
Little Shop of Horrors, but I did a few guest shots, and uhm Hill Street Blues, and Cheers,
and a few other things, and then uhm, and then I got this audition for Star Trek.
See television was ch... radically changing at that (hmm yeah) point.
We were having multiple storylines, we were having big casts.
Hill Street Blues, (oh, oh) Hill Street Blues was a game changer.
(sure) In my op... for me.
(yeah, oh yeah it was) It was a game changer.
(yeah) It was, you had multiple characters with multiple storylines, and that's what
I thought it was gonna do, and Gene Roddenberry himself said to me it's not what this is gonna be.
(yeah) He was still modelling from the original, (sure)
and that was in the sixties and things were changing.
(sure, yeah) and that's just the, the truth.
Marina had auditioned for Tasha, and I was auditioning for Troi at that point.
They were sold on me as that part.
Gene felt that, and these are his words, that I was too much like Grace Kelly.
They didn't make any Troi action figures at first.
No!
There were no Troi action figures in the first uhm...
That's the saddest thing I ever heard.
*Laughter* Because I was gonna be gone,
they weren't gonna need 'em.
Oh my God.
Oh yeah it's a whole thing that happened that first season.
You see I was like, I was just like 'mm don't say anything maybe it'll go away you know'.
Yeah.
But I did uhm court the fans because I was gonna be fired the first season.
Right, why?
Uhm because Gene Roddenberry felt that there was 1 too many women on the show
for an action adventure show.
OK.
I remember once Patrick and I having a discussion, and it might be a very common theme with actors,
that one day we were gonna be caught out,
that people were gonna find out that we were frauds.
We were, we were bad *laughter* In fact we had a director in the first season
who directed 2 shows and then refused to ever come back, *laughter* because we were too rowdy, *laughter*
we got really told off for that, it was apparently unheard of in the history of Hollywood
that a director would refuse to work with actors,
we, we had it as a badge of honour actually on our set. *laughter*
When the presenters are up here, and when the recipients are receiving their awards
don't stand at the back of the stage with your hands in your pockets
looking around as though you wished you were anywhere but here.
Oh!
Captain Jean Luc Picard I wish I could say you've been like a father to me,
but I'm gonna die if I'm standing on this you know, br... up on this console
and just watching Patrick's bald head.
*Laughter* You know, and going, you know, aye, aye Captain.
I struggled with the whole writing of my character of Tasha Yar.
I mean I, I think that they had a great idea that they didn't really uhm
know what to do with it.
Yeah I mean you know I, my experience for the most part was just, you know how tight
can they make my uniform look *Laughter* and how great my tits looked, 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,
but you know that's Hollywood, it's, I'm certainly not the only actress.
First season of Star Trek I was like oh my God what was I thinking.
Unwatchable, unwatchable.
Uhm I was amazed I still had a job after the pilot.
I watched Encounter at Farpoint and I thought how do I still have a job?
It was like Star Trek meets Sophie's Choice.
It was awful.
Way too dramatic.
Worf was not gonna be, he was gonna be.
Uhm, and then he was like on my shoulder.
(yeah) Like who are you? and I'm security, but who are you?
When they hired him I think it was just eh basically to see how it would turn out.
Eh but once he, they saw him on film, and they saw how, how I was portraying him, they
probably discovered that boy the character is wide open, you know, he can, he can do
just about anything, and eh his presence is, is felt immediately.
Immediately you're drawn to the size, you're drawn to the makeup,
you know the whole, the whole 9 yards.
You know the original concept for Counsellor Troi was very much a kind of Icelandic uhm co...
eh cool, mysterious kind of unemotional character, and was descriptively tailored more for, you
know how I looked and how I could, would, would play her.
The the description for Tasha Yar was uhm eh like a little fire plug, you know dark
and uhm eh, you know tough, and kind of I think based more around the, the, the character
of uhm eh Vasquez I think her name. Aliens.
As a matter of fact, truth be told, what was going to happen was they were gonna let Marina go
at the end of first season, and they let Gates go, so I essentially was gonna be the only one,
and then I left, and then they were like "Oh God, OK now what do we do?"
So it changed, and that's from Marina telling me, I did not know that.
One of the great eh scenes that I ever read sadly was never filmed,
and that was my audition scene for Tasha Yar.
It was a scene in which she was, she was uhm sent to counsellor Troi for actual counselling.
She was very eh upset, and she was struggling with her position on the bridge,
she felt unentitled to it, and undeserving.
Perhaps yes it would've, it would've changed to my you know benefit eh but, but who, who,
who could've possibly have seen that?
You need a doctor and you need a security chief, but you don't really need the psychologist,
right.
So I was the one that was being given the old heave-ho, and Gene Roddenberry's wife
Majel Barrett played my mother on the show, so she knew that if I was fired
that was her job gone as well.
Right.
Have you been thinking about Tasha Yar all these 30 years?
You have been haven't you.
We're not going without our shuttle crew.
I warned you.
Enough, we have people who need attention.
We won't hurt you, but we must help them.
I saw early on that things were about to change, and I think I helped that in some way, because
I was going to conventions and I was kind of getting blown away by the stories I was
hearing, that the fans were telling, and just the, the openness and the, you know heart-warming
tales.
There's some need for fans to be able to tell their story, because the media is not getting
it, you know.
There's all kinds of stuff going on, and why?
You know what is the why under it?
And uhm, so I just set out to explore that.
How's your legs?
The hours were so long, and I was, I had absolutely no dialogue, and all I did was have to be
in that position above you know, the cap... eh Picard and, and on that horse shoe, and
I said "Look, I mean I don't have anything to say.
Just do a mock-up of my legs, and just stick 'em there, it will look like I'm there", and
they were going "Oh Denise don't be silly", "Oh no, no I'm really serious, you know you
could do that", and uhm, but they didn't take me up on it.
I didn't even have a chair to sit in.
Television was not your main goal as an actor you know, you gotta, you, you wanna get to,
you wanna do theatre, you wanna do movies, I was doing indie films, it wasn't like we
were all jumping around in acting class going "I wanna get a series"
Yesterday's Enterprise opened the door for me thinking about Sela, and I'm the one who
came up with the idea of Sela, because I uhm what my original idea was that Yar, and it
Sela would be Yar and Castillo's child, so that's the idea I pitched.
Story arc would be that she would eventually find out about her mother, and be maybe perhaps
a bridge to peace with the Romulans, so that's what I pitched to Rick Berman, and he kinda went
"Interesting, let me think about it and I'll get back to you", so I thought OK well
you know typical Hollywood, you'll never hear from him again, and then he,
he called me up like months later and he said "You know we're gonna go with that idea,
but we're gonna change it a little bit
so that Tasha was you know captured by a Romulan General and, and has a child.
How'd you like a trip to Romulus?
With or without the rest of the fleet?
A diplomatic mission, we've been invited believe it or not.
But they've missed so many opportunities, you know in terms of the Romulans and me,
and you know so I don't know.
I, I, I, I long ago said you know after Nemesis you know, I, and I went to the producers and
said you know "Listen I hear, the fans are telling me at cons that your script has got
a lot of Romulans, er hello let, let me come", Oh and they said "Eh well, you know we love
you, we'd love to have you, but we can't figure out, it's not the timeline of the Ro...",
I just went OK whatever, and then they, the fans are like "That movie suuucked"
you know haha haha ha.
So my involvement was particularly so that I could guarantee that
I would have a good role to play in the movie.
Let me tell you something they, when we finished our last movie they were done with Star Trek,
(yeah) they had sold everything off 'Aah that Star Trek, aah we're done with that get',
I mean they were through.
We believe everything in the universe has a right to exist.
An interesting notion which I do not share, you may leave now if you wish.
I love Denise.
What do you mean?
She was really kind of a , not a ring leader, but she had these ideas, and my favourite
was they gave us these little bitty dressing rooms.
It was like a half-moon.
That people used to drag behind their, their car.
Their station wagon in the fifties.
Yah.
They gave us those which was un air-conditioned, all that type of stuff, and it was really
pretty horrible, and so Denise had this idea of making a little area, like a little...
I have pictures of it.
What, what.
it's a, what do you call this?
Like a little village, like a little, a motor trailer.
A motor trailer.
Yeah a trailer park yeah.
A trailer park.
It was great, I have pictures.
And she has a fence, little white fence, and, and.
Big palm trees.
And, and fake.
Astro turf.
Astro turf yeah.
And lawn chairs.
We would be out there having a great, and they, they told us don't do that.
They took it, they stripped it all down.
I know, it was actually great.
We were, we were bringing in stuff, we were getting really wild, you know like we would
go over to the uhm the prop, the prop eh storage on the Paramount lot which was vast, I mean
it had stuff from, from the thirties you know on through the eighties, and we would just
grab stuff, and whatever we, the weirder the better, and you know other actors started
visiting like the cast of Cheers would come over, and like look at our cool little village,
and uhm you know everybody was, it became a thing, you know there were like leading,
you'd see tourists walking by on the Paramount lot.
That's what it was like, but it was so awesome.
It was so awesome.
We were relaxing in our space suits like "Hey how you doing?" *laughter* The prop department
was so awesome, (yeah) they, another time when it was during Descent, and I had taken
over the Captain's chair they let me, I, I redecorated the bridge, because I wanted to
do that when Patrick came back to shoot his scene, so I had all these, I had them get
me all these frames, and we put these pictures of Wil Wheaton's character up everywhere *laughter*
and then, and then certain people so it was all there, and then I had a champagne bottle
thing, and I was in curlers in the bathroom, and had all these props, because I always
had props, and the bridge never had props, and I thought well just throw a lot of props.
They were so funny and great, because they worked just as long hours.
I, I think the studio just didn't want us to be that close, they figured if, if, and
this is one thing...
They wanted control.
They wanted control, and divide and conquer, if they keep us apart they can do, but if
we get together, talk, exchange you know what our contracts are, and stuff like that, they
didn't want that.
And, and I think, I knew Brent from before in New York, and eh Patrick I met uhm, he'd
come down to see the play so there were a couple of people I knew, but I know for me
the time that was really fun to hang out was probably more around uhm, what, what season
did, di eh every boy deserves a favour?
because Patrick directed a uhm a few of us.
Did any of you see it?
What season was that?
'Cause that was super fun to go in when Paramount was closed, and actually use a room, it was
sort of like sneaking into the bosses place or something, they let us rehearse there,
and that was like really cool 'cause I you know we sort of we felt like we were sort
of doing something we weren't supposed to be doing.
Let's, let's take questions.
OK who's got a question?
You got a question?