Star Trek' ushered in the end of the Westerns. Then the canvas switched to the sci-fi canvas.
John de Lancie
You have to risk to get ahead The person whos always hugging the tree trunk and never walking out onto the skinny branches will never succeed. Sometimes you have to walk out onto the skinny branches, and that means having goals, taking a risk.
I got a call from my agent saying you have an offer to voice a cartoon by the name of 'My Little Pony.' And that's pretty much what went in my ear. So I asked him the three questions that actors always ask. I need to see the script, when and how much, which were legitimate questions.
It was fans... who understood 'Star Trek' and brought it back to life. 'Hill Street Blues,' 'The Paper Chase,' and 'Til Fly Away' all got second chances... So did 'Gunsmoke' and 'Cheers.' It's very hard to change a network's mind, but it can be done.
The problem with Alien Voices 'was we had four really terrific years. And then it began to be about selling: Simon & Schuster wanted whatever, 40,000 units sold a year.'
My first interaction with Gene was that after I auditioned I walked out of the room and then this big guy walks out with me, and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, 'You make my words sound better than they are.' And I said, 'Well, you must be the writer.' And he said 'I'm Gene Roddenberry.' And I had no idea who that was.
When I did finally get to the circus as an adult, I was very impressed by the trapeze artist. But, being 6 feet 3 inches and over 200 pounds, there was no way I could do a trapeze act. If I fell I'd take the catcher with me.
I had a panic attack years ago in preparation for a very difficult show. And you cannot hear, or see, or you can't compute. It's quite terrifying.
Q is one big stew that keeps on boiling.
No technology comes close to the effect of a live symphony orchestra.
'Petrushka' was not conceived as a children's ballet, even though it involves puppets. We're on the outer limits of what's child-appropriate here.
That was the great, great thing about 'Star Trek,' that it was a show that people could tune into at all sorts of different levels.
I was raised on the classics - Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and others.
I'd really like to think Picard and Q are each other's Jekyll and Hyde. That's an interesting way to look at their relationship, and it gives you a pretty good idea of who Q is.
The way you can see what an actor brings to a role is you turn the sound off. Everything else becomes subtext, the wink and the nod, and the attitude and all that kind of stuff is a little easier to see with the sound off.
I don't think I will be playing Q again. I could be wrong, but I'm not counting on it. The character has come from the bad boy to being the status quo, really.
It's great fun to have the license to say damn near anything you want, short of being offensive.
Almost everywhere in the world you go, people will come up and say, "Oh my God, you're from 'Star Trek.'"
I live in such a free-lance world and I've done 'Trek' so infrequently, when you really think about it, that continuity really isn't an issue to me. I live in a much more undetermined, gypsylike world.
'War of the Worlds' was a goof delivered as news bulletins. It was the beginning of an erosion that now has us in trouble. We just don't know where to get the truth. It was a piece made 56 years ago with all good intentions that still abused the public's trust. It was that little marble, that little push, and now no one trusts the media.
I kind of pride myself in the fact that when people hire me it's always considered creative casting.
I'm sure Roddenberry in his wildest dreams never would have thought he would have gotten five TV series out of his idea.
The thing about good acting is asking, how much are you going to reveal and when should you let the viewers' imagination take over?
I can only do Q when they ask me.
The perspective is that one week out of the year does not a career make nor enough income make.
I don't know how to carry a tune.
I don't physically enjoy watching TV. I don't enjoy the commercials.
I sail to Hawaii and back a lot, and it sometimes involves very terrifying experiences. And you have to keep yourself from becoming panicky.
I'm never what anybody envisions as the prototype of a character. My looks are just odd enough so that I'm just not what people think of.
The part of television I like are things that have a documentary feel to them.
I'm not a fan of Fox News. They do more to pervert the truth in this country than most organizations that I know of.
A lot of the time you find that elements of a character are brought out by the actors playing them.
I'm not a great 'Star Trek' fan, but I love science fiction.
If a person says they're an athlete but they don't compete in sports, then you wonder if they're really an athlete. It's the same with acting. There are lots of people who call themselves actors but never act.
Being idly hanging around, and that's not good for an actor to do.
The best movie for me is a science fiction movie, the best books for me are science fiction books. I love this stuff.
It's not like I go around trying to imprint all the characters I play with Q.
I've always been a Geographic fan, from as early as there was television.
When I did 'Farpoint,' I didn't even know I was going to do a second show, and the experience went on for seven years.
Our world has us always here. We will be here from now 'til the end of time... maybe not! And that's the scary part!
I mean, an actor's got to be known for something. Typecasting is an unfortunate kind of reflex punishment for having done a good job. But what's the alternative? To not do a good job?
I'd be happy to have run rehearsals for a month, but it gets expensive to do that.
I watch all of the Q episodes. I just don't remember them after I've turned off the television.
I really didn't follow Star Trek.
Actors need to be known for having done something, because the alternative isn't so good.
I hadn't watched 'Star Trek' when I was a kid.
I'm of the opinion that it flies in the face of reason not to believe. The odds are too great against you to not believe that there is some sort of extraterrestrial life out there.
I'm really not a television watcher.
Before television, there was a piano in many homes in this country. People played instruments on an amateur level and because of that, they became informed amateurs. We've lost that.
I usually play the sort of hard-boiled guy who is forcing situations - I'm not usually playing the person in reaction.
