Isn't Wil Wheaton great?
Yes. *Applause*
Aren't we all surprised?
Yes.
I knew that, I knew that.
He's great, I'm gonna tell you he's got to do every single convention because
I've been out on a couple and uhm
sometimes people aren't very nice about Wes, but eh he's a great kid
and if he was 10 years older he would not stand a chance.
Haha.
You call yourself a geek.
Yeah.
What is a geek?
Being a geek is not about what you love it's about the way that you love it.
Wesley really I think you know in some of his wildest dreams
really wants to command a starfleet vessel.
*Laughter* I understand, I, I, I find out that you have a bomb to drop on the world
eh tonight.
Well uhm eh yeah I guess.
Well go ahead.
I'm uhm carrying George Bush's love child.
Really?
Right.
No kidding *laughter* I eh I'm kidding uhm.
Back-handed.
I uhm...
I figured out really early on that there were kids in audition rooms who were there because
it was fun to pretend, it was fun to make believe, and then there were kids who were
there because the parents wanted them to be famous and then there were kids that wanted
to be famous, and those 3 sorts of groups of people stayed the same all the way through…
all the way up until we were teenagers, and the kids that ended up having real problems
were the kids that weren't doing it because they loved the art, they weren't doing it
because they loved the the make believe.
They were doing it because it was kind of thrust upon them.
Yeah I got my start in the business at when I was 7 years old, uhm my mother was an actress,
and she took me into her agents and said... in the commercial agent for kids there said
"Do you like to act?", and I said "No".
Acting was actually something that was forced on me.
I have these very clear memories of saying over and over
"I don't wanna do this, I just wanna be a kid, let me be a kid".
I'm taking a break from Star Trek, a sabbatical if you will, uhm.
*Aah* I'm...
You, you're leaving Star Trek!
Well not, not exactly leaving, that sounds so permanent.
Ensign Crusher how could you?
Well I, I talked to the producers earlier this year and I said "Fellas I really want
to do some films, there's these projects coming up that I really want to do, I think that
maybe I could get out and do some films and expand my career a little bit", and they said
"OK, but you have to come back", and I said "Alright", so the episode, oh are you kidding
me I haven't worked on the show in 2 months and I'm like having withdrawal.
I was, I was doing a film in Virginia and I would schedule my time off around watching
Star Trek because I missed the cast so much.
Wesley is going to starfleet academy finally after eh 4 years on the show, and it's not
uhm, there's been I've heard "You're leaving the show!",
but that you know or "You were fired?"
Nothing like that I uhm I, I said "I'd really like to pursue a career in feature film",
and they said "We think you have a bright future in feature film, we'll give you a break,
and then you can come back and visit"
and she said "Well come back when you're ready".
Well I came back a week later and said I was ready, *laughter* and...
What happened in that week?
I don't know I think I was like contacted by God or the Mafia or something, I dunno,
and, and I went in and I was eh selected (uh huh) to to come into the agency,
and I did commercials (yeah) for a while, and then I did some theat...
some theatrical stuff.
They really weren't interested in having me come around anymore you know, and I was kind
of bummed because I really love the people here you know, the cast is is was was like
my family when I was in high school you know, they were my only friends when I was, when
I was around here.
They treat me not like a kid, but as an equal which I really appreciate and I really like
you know the same way the character isn't treated, the character isn't treated as a child
treated as an equal, and eh they're not condescending or rude or anything like
that to me because I'm a kid, they treat me the way they would treat anybody else
which is really rad.
Oh I, I can communicate with kids my own age, I'm a, I'm a normal kid really you know,
NO really I am.
Suuure.
I was tired of going to acting class and and giving 150% of myself to all of the jobs that
I did, and then having to work with people that really didn't care or were more interested
in their image or more interested in where their next you know magazine cover was coming
from rather than the the acting as a craft.
I can't believe I'm going to say this in public…
the only reason I didn't kill myself as a teenager is because I didn't know how.
Yeah which is great, so I first seen this episode which is where I, we see Gates and
she's sitting down holding this piece of paper, Dear Mum, life's rough here at the academy,
can I come home for a week?
Ha haha.
If you decide to come back it's nice that the door is open.
Yeah it's very, very good, and it's a very positive thing you know everytime… in in
the beginning of the show there was some all this stuff with the fans going 'we don't like you'
and then a couple of people you know there were cast changes and things like that
and, and there was all this negativity surrounding it.
I think there were people that didn't want me to continue.
I'm glad that they brought her back.
Uhm you know, I missed Gates the whole time she was gone.
At the copa copacabana.
Everybody!
The hottest spot north of Havana dede dum.
At the copa copacabana.
Were maybe a quarter through the day, halfway through the day and I'm having all
kinds of fun you know, and eh this is what it's about.
I mean for me this is what acting's about, having a good time and feeling good about
your work you know not that other stuff that sort of drove me out of the industry.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, how did you get that part?
Auditioned for it, and I went in with every other kid in the world,
and eh there's a great story that David Gerold who was one of the writers on Next Generation,
he said to Gene Roddenberry
"I don't think you should put a kid on the show, people don't like kids
in science-fiction shows", and Gene said "I want to have a kid on the show so that
younger audiences have a character to connect to and I wa…
I want family to part of this new series", and eh David Gerold said
"Well listen if you're gonna put a kid on the show you better put a kid in that role that can handle it".