Was there a role on the series which you secretly coveted?
Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us.
Origin Mister Kim?
But I'll tell you who I adored.
Guess who I adored?
Let's see how smart you are.
Who did I adore working with on that series?
The Doctor.
And who else do you think was my great personal friend?
I had two really close.
Bob Picardo and who else?
Who?
The pilot, Robbie McNeill, Mister Paris at the wheel.
Tom Paris.
Mm hm.
Applause for Robbie Duncan McNeill *applause* *woo* *applause*
*woo* *applause*
Robbie.
I wonder if we could go somewhere and talk.
About what?
About a job we'd like you to do for us.
Tut uhm I don't de de de uhm I have to say... *laughter* *applause* I think I have to say...
All I need to know from you is what's in it for me?
Now I want you to know, then we should start taking some questions.
I know we should.
I gave you your directorial debut.
Yes.
I gave him his first shot.
She did.
Tell them.
Kate, Kate eh you know when we first started on Voyager I had wanted to direct.
I instantly knew.
I went right to Berman, I said "This kid is terrific.
He's got it, he's going to do it Rick so I'd give him a boost if I were you.
Well then I guess I'm yours.
On the first day I got calls from Rick Kolbe who was directing the pilot.
On screen.
Finrish Kolbe, that's how you say it.
Finrish Kolbe.
German.
Eh yes, we became involved, uhm which you really shouldn't do,
and he gave me the first great push.
That's right.
French actress named Geneviève Bujold.
Eh she had been an Academy Award winning movie star.
French-Canadian, and she came and read for us, and Michael and Jeri adored her.
It was offered to and accepted by Geneviève Bujold the French-Canadian actress who is
a brilliant actress.
Aah that's nonsense.
She is brilliant.
I've seen a lot of her work.
Is there a small child over there?
But this was not for her because...
Let's read her the riot act, let's tell her h, h...
I'll tell ya I needed that job, really needed ha you know I was making like $250 a week
at eh at the play, and eh, not enough to support a family on or live on.
how awful it can be to be a regular on a television series.
That she's going to be working with directors she doesn't know,
she's going to be working fifteen hours a day.
He considered me a mercenary, willing to fight for anyone who'd pay my bar bills.
Trouble is he was right.
I have no problem helping you.
Painted a very dark picture of what it was like.
You will no longer be an officer on this crew, is that clear?
Of course the studio was in love with the idea of an Academy Award winning movie star,
and we told her everything, we told her everything...
Distress.
Fear.
Danger.
Terrible.
about what how horrible being on a television show would be, and she said let me go home
and talk to my children, 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.
Your hair could use a little help.
What's wrong Charlie?
It can use the greaseless protein boomer.
Protein 29.
Protein!
Your hair is protein.
Protein 29's got protein that's absorbed into the hair.
Oh it goes into my hair.
Right.
So the protein formula makes hair easy to manage,
helps it look fuller, thicker, and helps it to stay that way.
Oh it looks great honey.
She refused, well earlier she refused to dye her hair.
She had completely grey hair and we wanted her to dye it, she refused to dye it.
She finally agreed to dye it.
But I want you to know how very deeply you have disappointed me.
The two of you didn't get along too well I'm told.
Because that is a grind, and if your fellow actors are not with you, and they're not on
top of it, and they give up caring, it makes it a burdensome and very difficult experience,
so I loved him for that.
He was right there, they all were.
And Ethan tells the story to me still, he said,
he said "Boy you sure weren't very friendly that day".
Yeah it's nerve racking.
Can she do it?
Right.
Lieutenant Stadi lay in the course and clear our departure with operations.
Course entered.
You know what I like, I like the ase, the eyes glazing over as the head
(what makes you think) desperately trying to get the thing going. (that you deserve it?)
She sat in the chair and she said forty-five times
"ungaj"
*Laughter*
Ops has cleared us.
Ready thrusters.
Thrusters ready.
Engage.
Kathy I think that...
I think that...
Oh stuff it.
And she finally went to her trailer in tears.
She quit on the first day, and as... eh maybe it was the second day,
And it has been my greatest joy to have done it,
and I hope ladies and gentlemen that I have done it well.
Would you like to take over?
I on the other hand was forced to resign.
Everytime there was a triumph we celebrated it together,
and eh he directed me in Sacred Ground.
*applause* What? what?
what?
They did have a terrible problem with how we looked, didn't they?
Yes, yes, yes, YES whatever you say.
Why don't you just tell them the truth about what you did?
Hah.
There's nothing I don't know about you Robbie. Nothing, remember that.
Red alert.
And I went down to her trailer with the director, and I, I was very calm.
and I looked at her, and I just said "Look just eh pack up your stuff and go home".
I'll let you know when.
She called them in and she said "I'm so sorry, but I, I can't possibly do this,
I have a life, I have a son, I have a lover.
I'm very famo...
I'm wonder...
I'm leaving, I'm leaving, just write me the cheque, I'll see you later.
Right.
*Laughter* and I had always been in the pool.
But we finally ended up getting it worked out.
I don't even know where to start.
And at that point I called the, the studio people,
called the chairmen of television division and told him a story, and we just said let's shut
down, and shutting down is very expensive because you have to carry a lot of people,
and let's start the casting procedure again, and luckily we had a ssecond and third choisss,
and the ssecond choisss, eh was Kate Mulgrew.
Were you concerned at all when you took the role? because Star Trek is such a, a... hit.
I wasn't concerned, I was delirious with joy.
Of course what preceded my coming was a little chaotic and dramatic.
What was that?
Well, there was another woman actually in this role.
Oh no.
She was only in I think for about, what was it guys?
Smokey Robinson.
What?
Ah about five seconds haha.
Eh so there was eh, you know, some pressure.
I think Kate's a very interesting actor.
She managed to be a, a woman
and without it looking like boasting she was my first choice from the beginning.
I had the Paramount brass standing on the lip of my bridge every day for at least six
months, arms crossed, in their double breasted suits, glaring at me.
But somewhere the the dailies of that first day or two days with Geneviève Bujold exist.
It was destroyed, but our probes haven't picked up any debris.
The plasma storm might not leave any debris.
We'd still be able to pick up a resonance trace from the warpcore.
Let's read her the riot act, and we told her everything, we told her everything...
Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us.
Origin Mister Kim?
I'm not sure.
I think it's unfair, that's all.
Everybody's on my back about this.
I mean there's whining about how I can't make a commitment, and I'm cold.
I'm afraid of intimacy, and then everybody jumps on my back and acts like I'm neurotic
or something, and I'm not doing my job.
Tuvok.
She went over and greeted ensign Kim, she looked around the coms, she said hello to
Roxanne in science, she said hello to mister Paris at the helm,
and she sat down in her chair and she says...
Ungaj.
*Laughter and claps*
I'm not being derisive it's what she says *Laughter*
Now this is an American series right,
and it was going to be very difficult,
and everything would have to be rouge alert. *Laughter*
So after, and I am not exaggerating forty-seven takes of ungaj. *Laughter*
Right, and of course she's now becoming completely frustrated UNGAJ UNGAJ
*Laughter* She finally said I am fini, ce fini.
de montre. This is crazy.
I am going to my trailer bring the producers, bring the President I'm done. *Laughter*
They came to her trailer, and she said "You are absurd. You people are insane.
You call this working?
this is slavery.
You want me to work like this for eighteen hours a day, for seven years, for money".
POOF she can't.
I am leaving I have a son, and I have a lover, au revoir *Laughter and claps*
She left, *claps*
and the call came to me.
And she'd be told to do it again because somebody didn't like her hair, her hair do.
And on the first day I had a long monologue where I walk on the bridge and I introduce
everybody, from Tim Russ at this console to Garrett Wang at this console.
I remember them all.
To Roxann Dawson at science.
Across the bridge to someone I don't remember.
*Laughter* Mister Paris, Chakotay.
Oh no Chakotay wasn't there yet, this was the beginning.
Engage.
And that was it, and I felt as if not only was this going to work, but that it had to
go through those particular bumps, and from that moment on it was mine.
On the first day I got calls from Rick Kolbe who was directing the pilot.
Sometimes in a lifetime you're given an opportunity that transcends even what it's called
which was a role on a television series.
It has given me more opportunities to find out who I really am.
So I hope if I did nothing else in my seven years as Captain Janeway, I hope you saw that
I wanted her to be a Captain of dignity, of vitality, of humanity, of levity, and of love.
and I always say no, that's not true.
Dismissed.
But for me, I was the only other actor who actually paid for a publicist,
nobody else did first three seasons.
Tuvok.
Uhm wonderful, uhm, eh, lady to work with,
and I would've liked to have more scenes with her.
Seven of Nine is interesting, I was sitting at home late one night, and I was watching
a videotape of one of our episodes that had a Borg mummy in it or something, and I just,
I just thought, God the Borg, what if we had a Borg on the ship?
So I called Joe Menosky, and pitched this idea, and he thought it was a great idea,
and we talked about it.
All the things, what would that mean to have a Borg character?
It would be really cool, and then I called Rick, and it was late, but 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, and we just talked about it for a couple a hours, and we just thought
this is, this is a really cool idea.
This could be really just the thing we need.
Aah I see it now, it's so simple.
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.
I will not do this.
I will not be a cog in the machine.
I will not accept the obsolete.
Keep your corporate ladder.
Keep your empty mission statements.
I will never play by the old rules again.
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.
Uhm...
uhm...
but no I mean it wasn't, it was, it was eh...
haha, it wasn't easy, it wasn't an easy working relationship between the two of us.
The camera started at her feet, the heels were six inches, and went up the body
that never ended.
And I just said "Oh my God", so my arguement with it is phylosophical or political.
I don't have any argument with Jeri Ryan, but she should learn to be on time.
Next question.
I challenged, I challenged Jeri, I said Jeri, we were sitting in, in the make-up table,
and, and I said Jeri you know since you're going out with Brannon who is one of the chief
writers.
He'll never write a scene where you and I kiss, he's too jealous.
He would never write where you and I kiss, and she said "Oh my God, I'm gonna tell him
what you just said, I think it's so funny".
Well like two episodes later he, that's when they threw us together, and uhm he wrote me
a note, it said "Who's jealous?".
*Laughter*
Yeah I'll tell you something about Seven of Nine, uhm.
She was wearing this derma regenerating suit, right.
This is the reason it was so tight.
They were regenerating her skin, it was a derma regen...
she wore it for what four years.
Oh Stop!
I said let's take it off and see if it worked.
*Laughter* Come on.
What the Hell is going on here?
I was twenty-one when I got the part, but I was playing like sixteen, and I, I had a
lot of scenes with Jeri Ryan.
*Laughter* And just a lot of tight two shots where you're just, you're just right there,
you know, and you, and I was twenty-one, did I mention what I...
*Laughter* and it's very *sighs* it's something that, it's not shared a lot, but it's very
hard to hide an erection in a starfleet uniform.
*Laughter* clap, clap.
*Laughter* And so most of my memories are, are of just running off set for this reason
or that reason.
*Laughter* To get a bagel, or I gotta go to the bathroom, or I gotta go talk to you know,
to get rid of my boner.
Sad about Jen, and I'll tell you exactly why, coz I think she's a hell of an actress.
Sorry to see her go.
Sorry to see her go the way she went, eh knowing that she was a wonderful actress.
That, that was, that was tough.
She was not interested in anything but the work.
The hype and and all the other stuff, the glory and all that.
No, Jennifer was, wanted to do her job really well, and we never really had a goodbye.