Star Trek: Picard - The Collector's Edition 9781785861918

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Across seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and four epic movies, Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise battled terrifying threats to the galaxy, from the Duras Sisters to the Borg. Now, 18 years after his last appearance in Star Trek Nemesis, Sir Patrick Stewart’s legendary character returns in Star Trek: Picard. Driven by the memories of his dear friend Data and accompanied by a brand new crew – as well as some much-loved familiar faces – he once again comes to the aid of the Federation in its hour of dire need…

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CONTENTS

C O N T E N T S C A S T I N T E RV I E W S

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PATRICK STEWART Jean-Luc Picard

68 BRENT SPINER Data

24 ISA BRIONES Dahj/Soji

72 JONATHAN DEL ARCO Hugh

30 ALISON PILL Dr. Agnes Jurati

76 HARRY TREADAWAY Narek

44 MICHELLE HURD Rafaela “Raffi” Musiker

82 EVAN EVAGORA Elnor

50 SANTIAGO CABRERA Cristobal “Chris” Rios

88 JONATHAN FRAKES Will Riker

62 JERI RYAN Seven of Nine

94 MARINA SIRTIS Deanna Troi

BEHIND THE SCENES

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14 PAST IS PROLOGUE A Profile of Picard

36 MICHAEL CHABON Showrunner

16 ALEX KURTZMAN Executive Producer

56 HANELLE CULPEPPER Director

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MARINA SIRTIS

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PAT R I C K S T E WA RT

PICARD Much has changed for Jean-Luc Picard since his last appearance 18 years ago in Star Trek Nemesis – and much has changed too for the man who plays him, Sir Patrick Stewart. Not just the lead in Star Trek: Picard, Stewart is also an executive producer on the show, intimately involved in shaping and guiding the destiny of the character he first played over 30 years ago.

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01 Sir Patrick Stewart as JeanLuc Picard. 02 Picard with his faithful dog, Number One.

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ere’s precisely how much Sir Patrick Stewart missed JeanLuc Picard and how much he missed playing one of Star Trek’s most iconic characters: “Not at all,” the former Star Trek: The Next Generation actor says, shaking his head side to side for emphasis. Really? “No, because after seven years of doing the series, I was more than ready to move on,” Stewart replies, warping into a measured, thoughtful, and detailed explanation. “The series was all-consuming. We shot 22 episodes a season, and I think [for] two seasons we actually shot 24 episodes. So, we only ever got five or six weeks off in the year. It took up all the rest of the time. And after seven years of that, I was going stir crazy for something else to do. Even though I loved the show, and admired it, and I certainly adored all the people I was working with, I needed fresh stimulation. “I used to create work for myself during the four- to five-week periods that we had off. When others went off on holiday or whatever, I would do another job. I would try and squeeze in a film or a little bit of television or even a short round of a play or something like that. And then we went on to do the four movies. It was a commitment of, I suppose, about 12 or 13 years in all. “So, no,” he says. “I’m very proud of everything we achieved [on The Next Generation]. I think the work was outstanding. It still irritates me that in the seven seasons we were shooting that we never got one single nomination of any award going for the creative awards. Nothing! We were sort of poor relations, and that was a little frustrating at times, despite the fact that we had these worldwide audiences that were impressed. So, that’s what it was like. I’d done it.”

Picard. Much to his surprise, however, the producers’ pitch captivated him and he requested their ideas in writing. That resulted in the arrival soon thereafter of a 30-somethingpage outline. Suddenly, Stewart found himself absorbed in contemplating Picard’s next chapter – so absorbed that he ended up assuming an active role in charting the character’s arc in Picard and signed on not only to return as Picard, but to serve as a hands-on, fully invested executive producer of the show. If you’ve seen the show, you understand the basic set-up of Picard. Two decades after the events of Star Trek Nemesis, the ever-honorable Jean-Luc is an ex-admiral living out his days in a sort of self-imposed exile at Chateau Picard with his faithful dog, Number One, by his side. Just as Scotty was a relic to the Enterprise-D

THE NEXT CHAPTER

HEART OF THE MATTER

Stewart, of course, changed his mind when Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and others approached him with the concept of what evolved into Star Trek: Picard. It’s now an oft-told story: Stewart took the initial meeting only to inform the producers in person that he would pass on the opportunity to reprise his role as

“I didn’t know that [Picard was dying] until we were way into production,” says Stewart, who will turn 80 years young in July 2020. “I knew that [he’d] had this condition, because that went all the way back to Next Generation, that he had a heart replacement and that there were other additional issues to do with that. But

“I didn’t know that [Picard was dying] until we were way into production.” crew in the Next Generation episode, “Relics,” Picard and even the Enterprise are vestiges of the past to Starfleet. When he can’t count on Starfleet following a sudden turn of events that involves the Borg and the Romulans, his own unyielding guilt over Data’s (Brent Spiner) sacrifice years earlier, and a mysterious young woman (Isa Briones) in desperate need of his help, Picard must take matters into his own hands. He assembles a new crew and leads them and their ship, La Sirena, down a dangerous, life-altering path. And very much in play is the harsh reality that Picard, now in his 90s, is terminally ill.

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it took me a little by surprise to find out he was, in fact, very, very sick. I can’t tell you how that’s resolved. You’ll have to wait and see about that. But it’s a very unusual and, I think, brilliant twist in the story about what happens to Picard and his health, his body.” Stewart acknowledges the “déjà vu all over again” factor of slipping back into character as Picard when director Hanelle Culpepper called “Action!” on the show’s first day of production. After all, it had been more than 17 years – or somewhere in the vicinity of 6,205 days – since Stewart wrapped production on Star Trek Nemesis. That film, the final Next Generation big-screen adventure, introduced story elements which factor prominently in Picard. “So, I remember, we shot one very short scene, which was my first [Picard] scene,” Stewart says. “I had, like, four lines, but it was at the heart of the story of Season 1. It was to do with Data, that [dream sequence] scene. That was at Santa Clarita Studios, where we filmed, which was a 45-minute drive out of Los Angeles. We wrapped the set after about two hours of work and we all got into vans and cars, and we drove up into the wine country where there is a real French chateau, north of Santa Barbara. We spent the rest of the week there, shooting on location. And, there were a lot of references to the world as we know it today, which, I must say, has been one of the things about this series that has excited me such a lot. So, it was familiar, but it was new as well, to revisit this 18 years later.”

ACT YOUR AGE

03 Picard turns to the Federation for assistance.

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During his time on The Next Generation, Stewart needed to be aged up by Michael Westmore and his make-up team for the episodes “The Inner Light” and “All Good Things…” As noted earlier, Jean-Luc is supposed to be in his 90s in Picard. However, the actor reveals that his make-up only took “about five minutes” each day to apply and that he purposefully shed some pounds off his already slender frame, which did the job of adding years to his visage. “I have a brilliant make-up artist who makes me look very, very natural,” Stewart says. “Occasionally, he made me look tired or stressed.

And I lost weight in order to shoot it because I get to a point when I’ve lost enough weight that every other ounce that I lose, I lose from my face, and my face gets very thin and sort of haggard, which is how I wanted to look. And I do. I’m very pleased with how I look in this. The great thing about this, the one element that I’ve enjoyed most, is that Jean-Luc Picard has lived 18 more years, and so has Patrick Stewart. “So, I don’t have to act anything!” he exclaims. “I was being Patrick Stewart. What I was when I was Patrick Stewart back in 1987, I never thought about it. I only had

“It’s a very unusual and, I think, brilliant twist in the story about what happens to Picard and his health, his body.” to reference myself. And it’s exactly the same now. Yes, there are ways, all kinds of subtle things, in which I have aged, and I’m a little bit more fragile than I was, and I let those come to the surface more than I ever did in the past.”

A NEW CREW Longtime Star Trek fans are understandably excited about Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Jonathan Del Arco reuniting with Stewart for Picard, and also about Jeri Ryan’s surprise addition as her popular Star Trek: Voyager character, Seven of Nine. Stewart terms himself “thrilled” to work with that whole contingent of actors. Truth be told, though, most of them appear in limited capacities throughout Picard, and it’s the series’ freshly minted cast who are Stewart’s ongoing co-stars over the course of its 10-episode first-season run. That group includes the aforementioned Briones as Dahj/Soji, Santiago Cabrera as Cristobal “Chris” Rios, Michelle Hurd as Raffi Muskier, Alison Pill as Dr. Agnes Jurati, Harry Treadaway as Narek, and Evan Evagora as Elnor.

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A SIDE POCKETS ASIDE There’s almost no better sound than that of Patrick Stewart laughing. And laugh he does, several times, and loudly, while sharing anecdotes about, of all things in the known galaxy, pockets in the pants of his Star Trek: Picard costumes. To quickly provide some context, the form-fitting uniforms Stewart almost always sported on Star Trek: The Next Generation and in the Next Generation features rarely ever included pockets. That changed in a major way on Picard, much to Stewart’s great pleasure and bemusement. “I wasn’t in a uniform,” Stewart explains. “I was wearing fairly contemporary clothes. Our costume designer [Christine Clark] has done a brilliant job in creating a 24th-Century civilian world. I mean, an ordinary, everyday working world. It’s sensational what she’s done. And one of the most important things from my point of view was that I had pockets. And I’ve already been told I put my hands in my pockets far too much in this season.” Stewart is in the middle of laughing when he is queried as to whether or not it was Jonathan Frakes, his old friend, who directed two episodes of Picard, who suggested Stewart was slipping his hands into his pockets too often. “Yes!” Stewart shouts. “I think Jonathan did say, ‘Come on, take the bloody hands out of your pockets!’ And I said, ‘For 12 years, I had no pockets at all to put my hands in. I’m making up for lost time! And I’m putting my hands in my pockets!’”

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04 Jean-Luc Picard costume design by Christine Bieselin Clark, concept art by Greg Hopwood. 05 Flashback to the moment when Picard tells Raffi his gambit to force the Federation to act in the Romulan crisis has failed. 06 Picard arrives at Starfleet HQ.

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“I’m a co-executive producer on the show, which I never was before on Star Trek, and never had been on any other show,” Stewart notes. “But it gave me a voice, different from, ‘Hey, I’m playing the eponymous role, you know. You’ve got to consult me.’ Now, I’m part of the producers’ circle. So, I was involved in casting as well and had a hand in approving, or occasionally not approving, some of the suggestions that came up. I think we have an extraordinary group of principal actors, of very, very gifted actors. We have one actor, Evan [Evagora], who is quite inexperienced, and it’s been marvelous over the weeks and months to watch him grow as an artist. His growth – as he has grown – is extraordinary. His command on camera now is outstanding. He is also a delightful person. Isa Briones is terrific. She is really the female star of the new series.

“The work was so intense when we began, and there was so much to learn in terms of script – which does not get any easier with the years – that the first four months were all about work,” he says. “Just the work. It was about turning up,

“Star Trek changed my life. Every corner of it was touched by being Jean-Luc Picard.” knowing the lines, hitting the marks, having the right ideas, and being as creative as possible. But there was zero socializing, at least for me. I never saw people off the set. At lunchtime, I’d go to my trailer and lock the door and sleep for an hour. “It wasn’t until we all went to San Diego Comic-Con that we actually had the opportunity to socialize. That had

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never happened before. At least, it hadn’t for me. I think maybe the others had met from time to time. But I had never seen any of them outside the context of Star Trek. And we had so much fun that weekend in San Diego. I enjoy their company enormously and I’m looking forward to getting to know them better.”

MAN OF MEANING Stewart listens intently, respectfully, as it’s pointed out to him during the waning moments of this conversation that Jean-Luc Picard means so much to so many people. There are fans out there who model themselves after him and what he says, what he does, and who he is as a person, with his loyalty, decency, and calm under duress. Those same fans appreciate the respect that Stewart has exhibited for the role. The legendary actor nods and smiles when asked what all of that means to him, and also what it means to him to come full circle with Star Trek: Picard.

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“Perhaps the most appealing part, in relation to your question, is that a lot of people have come forward and have told me what Next Generation meant to them, what it means to them even today,” Stewart begins. “And this ranges from people who were children when they first saw it to people who started watching it in their 40s and 50s. And it’s still a little bit disconcerting when I meet a middle-aged person who says, ‘I was still in junior school when I first started watching this.’ It’s like, ‘Oh my God!’ Honestly, has it been so long? People have actually grown up! I could write an essay about what people have told me about the impact that the series has had on their lives. “My favorite one, which I’ve told a lot of times because it is, for me, the most impactful thing that was ever said to me… It actually wasn’t said to me; it was written in a letter,” he continues. “I got a letter, a fan letter, about two thirds of the way through Next Generation, from a man who said he was a sergeant in the Las Vegas police force. He said he loved his job, and he always wanted to be a policeman, that he really enjoyed doing it. But there were days when he came home from work, when the horror he’d witnessed, the wickedness he had seen, the pain and suffering that he’d experienced, made him despair for humankind. And when he felt like that, he would go to the shelf and take down a video of Next Generation and watch it. Watching our show would give him back his faith in people, and society, and the community, and the planet. That touched me so deeply. It still does. There are variations on that man’s experience that I have heard, and I hear them all the time. “So, when you ask me what does it mean to me… I’ve had a lot of fun. Star Trek changed my life. Every corner of it was touched by being Jean-Luc Picard. My personal life, emotional life, and friendships. My knowledge of the world. And I learned a hell of a lot more about working on camera, because just before I got Star Trek, I said to my agent, ‘You know what I need? I need camera time. I’ve never had enough camera time! I want something where I’m on camera day after day after day.’ So,” Sir Patrick Stewart concludes, “be very careful what you wish for, because I got 12 years of it! And now I am back for more.”

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PICARD PROFILE

PAST IS PROLOGUE A PROFILE OF PICARD

Who is Jean-Luc Picard? At one time or another he has been a captain, an admiral, a leader, a statesman, a warrior, a friend, an ally, an enemy, and more…

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orn in La Barre, France, on Earth in 2305, JeanLuc Picard stands as one of the 24th Century’s most distinguished Federation citizens. Although his family owned a traditional vineyard, Picard set his sights on exploration and enrolled in Starfleet Academy. He initially demonstrated an undisciplined and arrogant attitude, but gradually harnessed those passionate traits to become an incredibly promising cadet. Soon after Picard’s graduation, a violent encounter with Nausicaans at Starbase Earhart left the freshly minted officer with a near-fatal wound to his heart. Doctors installed an artificial device in order to save Picard, yet the ordeal served as an important benchmark in the young man’s journey. Confronted by his own mortality and the realization that life was fragile, Picard began to cherish each moment and seize the opportunities that were presented to him. From his tenure as an ensign on the U.S.S. Reliant to his assignment as a helmsman aboard the U.S.S. Stargazer, Picard rose swiftly through Starfleet’s ranks and acted with conviction and courage. When the Stargazer’s captain was killed in action, Picard stepped up to lead the crew and was given permanent command of the vessel. The captain presided over

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the ship throughout the Federation’s conflicts with the Cardassians and up until the Stargazer was presumed lost in a battle with the Ferengi in 2355. In 2364, Starfleet granted Picard the honor of becoming the captain of the Federation flagship, the Galaxyclass U.S.S. Enterprise-D, a role which found the seasoned officer navigating numerous diplomatic missions, first contacts, and interstellar incidents. Picard was captured and assimilated into the Borg Collective during the species’ invasion in 2366. A rescue

While nothing can truly erase the wounds the Borg inflicted upon him, Picard found closure. party saved the captain, but the traumatic experience has haunted him since that time. The Enterprise-D was eventually destroyed while defending Veridian III from Tolian Soran and the Klingon Duras sisters in 2371. Picard’s exemplary track record prompted Starfleet to give him command of the Sovereign-class U.S.S. Enterprise-E in 2372, yet the admiralty hesitated to call on Picard to reinforce them when the Borg launched an assault on Earth the following year. Nevertheless, the captain faced his

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fears, turned the tide at the Battle of Sector 001, squared off against the Borg Queen, and foiled the Collective’s plan to travel back in time in order to assimilate humanity in the past. While nothing can truly erase the wounds the Borg inflicted upon him, Picard found some semblance of closure from his victory over the Borg Queen. In 2379, Picard led a peace envoy to Romulus only to discover that the Empire’s Praetor Shinzon was actually a clone grown from the captain’s genetic material. The Enterprise-E’s commanding officer bested his Romulan-bred counterpart, but at great cost. Guilt over Shinzon’s actions and the death of the captain’s dear friend, the synthetic life form Data, have plagued the captain in the ensuing years. Despite this, Picard continued to serve with distinction after the incident and ultimately accepted a promotion to admiral. During the rogue synth strike on Mars and the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, Admiral Picard publicly described the attack as “devastating.” An honorable officer who is equally dedicated to his values, those who serve under him, and the Federation itself, Picard must now grapple with a relentless foe: the passing of time. For someone with more accolades than one can imagine, Jean-Luc Picard strives to reacquire the purpose that drove him for so long and, perhaps, save the galaxy… again.

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PICARD PROFILE

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ALEX KURTZMAN

ALEX KURTZMAN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Not only is he an executive producer on Star Trek: Picard, but Alex Kurtzman is in charge of the Star Trek universe, overseeing every show since the franchise returned to the small screen in 2017. As such, he has a unique perspective on Picard, its premise, and its characters, placing the show within the broader Trek context.

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eize the time… Live now!” Jean-Luc Picard once exhorted. “Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” Alex Kurtzman has clearly heeded that call. Kurtzman is this generation’s Gene Roddenberry or Rick Berman – the creative brain tasked with guiding the Star Trek franchise into the future. He cocreated and executive produces Star Trek: Discovery; Star Trek: Short Treks; two upcoming animated Trek shows; the forthcoming Section 31 saga; and, of course, Star Trek: Picard – all of which build on his previous Trek experience writing and producing the movies Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness. Here, Kurtzman addresses his ongoing Treks and takes a deep dive into Picard, from collaborating with Sir Patrick Stewart to the prospect of a second season, and much more… Star Trek: Picard – The Official Collector’s Edition: You are so deeply involved in everything going on

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right now in the Trek universe. Can you ever just kick back and enjoy an episode? Or are you too entrenched to be able to do that? Alex Kurtzman: Actually, I do enjoy it. I very much enjoy it. My involvement, it’s not just in the writing of it. I post all the shows, so that means I cut them, and I’m involved all

“I’m now at the point where I’m eating, breathing, dreaming Star Trek. And I love it!” the way down to the color timing and mixing. That’s a lot of work. But… I’ll show you how I enjoy it. My wife and son actually deliberately like to stay out of any knowledge of what I’m doing until it airs. So, when it airs, we all sit down and watch together, and I see it fresh through their eyes, which is really fun, because it’s the culmination of all the

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work, and now we get to sit together as a family and enjoy it. And, in a funny way, isn’t that what Star Trek has always been about? People sitting together as a family and loving it? How much discipline does it take to juggle the various balls? And how much of juggling it successfully is about having the right team by your side and delegating to them? It’s massive. It’s been an amazing journey for me, and it continues to be. There is no world where I could be doing this without the support of the extraordinary team on all the shows. It’s a 24-hour discipline for me as well. I’m now at the point where I’m eating, breathing, dreaming Star Trek. And I love it! I love it for one reason. The work itself is very challenging, but it’s also some of the most satisfying work I’ve ever done, and I think that the reason why is because I’m recognizing and seeing in so many people that I meet how critically important it is to their lives. I see that Star Trek has influenced people’s lives in a real way. It’s not just a form of entertainment. It’s an inspiration for the kind of people they

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ALEX KURTZMAN

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“[Picard] is a man who is reckoning with his mortality, a man who is reckoning with having made choices that kept him away from things like family. It’s just a profoundly emotional idea.” want to be, or the kinds of things they choose to pursue in their careers or the principles they want to live by. That’s put such a tremendous responsibility on our shoulders to deliver and to maintain that message. When I go to Comic-Con, for example, I hear what people are saying, and they get a chance to say it to us directly. They both express their gratitude, but also their deep, deep thinking about what the world of Star Trek means to them. I kind of realize that it’s become a mission. It’s not just a job. It really is a mission. It’s a mission to make the world a better place through Star Trek. So, for me personally? Very, very gratifying. I’m a little tired. I’m not going to lie about that. But I do love it. I love it, I think, maybe more than any job I’ve ever had.

01 Alex Kurtzman at the Picard premiere in Hollywood. 02 Kurtzman with fellow producers Heather Kadin, Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, and Kirsten Beyer, along with the Picard cast at the Television Critics Association event.

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What excites you most about the storytelling opportunities that Picard as a series presents? What excites me is the fact that we get to do a show in which our lead is almost 80 years old, and we get to really dive into the psychology of his character, who is in his 90s, and the sum total of that character’s life choices. He is a man who is reckoning with his mortality, a man who is reckoning with having made choices that kept him away from things like family. It’s just a profoundly emotional idea. Our intention was not to turn Picard into an action hero. I think people would find that to be very false. I think our intention was to bring him back into a world that had changed on

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him, and then to watch this man, who we are so used to seeing really able to handle any problem, be at a bit of a loss for how to proceed. He has to find a new version of himself. That, to me, was just so exciting. You’ll see that it has been written and created by people who love The Next Generation, but it is not The Next Generation. Picard is just a very, very different show. You’ll see echoes of Next Gen in there, and you’ll see Next Gen’s incredibly significant influence on the storytelling, but Patrick’s first thing to us was to say, “I don’t want to do what I’ve already done.” That sets a really high bar, and it was the right bar to set because it really allowed us to think openly and be free to explore what a next chapter in this character’s life could be.

“One of the things that he’s living with most is a feeling of a deep lack of resolution for the death of his dear friend, Data.” Just confirming: Picard is in his 90s? Yes, he is in his 90s. And, keep in mind, that people’s lifespans in the world of Star Trek are so much longer, that 90 is probably the equivalent of 70 now. Or maybe 65, with the kind of medical science that they have in the future. What can you tell us about Soji (Isa Briones), Raffi (Michelle Hurd), Rios (Santiago Cabrera), and some of the other characters in Picard’s orbit? Picard suffers a tragedy in the pilot. Also, one of the things that he’s living with most is a feeling of a deep lack of resolution for the death of his dear friend, Data [Brent Spiner]. He was never able to overcome that. Data sacrificed himself, but they never really got what Picard felt was closure. Among the many things that continue to haunt Picard, 20-plus years later, is the fact that he never got to say goodbye to his friend. He learns in the pilot there may be some essence of Data that still exists, and when he

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ALEX KURTZMAN

A CONTINUING MISSION… Most fans expected Star Trek: Picard to be a one-off event series, 10 episodes and off into the sunset for Sir Patrick. Now, however, based on statements Stewart himself has made, viewers could be in for several seasons of the show. Alex Kurtzman confirms that a sophomore year is a definite prospect, and divulges that it was on his mind from the get-go. “I think we always had a longer arc planned for him, knowing where we wanted to go in Season 1, and you’ll see we springboard into a whole new thing at the end of the season,” Kurtzman explains. “But, look, we never want to count our chickens. So, the intention was, ‘Let’s do a great season and if people love it, and if we can organically set up more, let’s do it.’ Why wouldn’t we want to?” 03

goes to Starfleet for help, we then learn that he and Starfleet have had a major falling out. Starfleet is not there to help him. And so, for the first time in the great captain’s life – or rather, the admiral’s life, or, actually, the former admiral’s life – he has to assemble a crew without the benefit of Starfleet. So, he goes out in search of Soji, who he believes may hold a connection to Data. To do that, he enlists the help of Raffi, who, we discover, was somebody he was very close with in Starfleet, somebody who shared a lot of his experiences. We begin to understand that they were both greatly impacted by the Romulan supernova, which we established in the 2009 movie, and that the Romulan supernova actually shifted the course of their careers in radical ways.

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Picard and Raffi experience a major falling out, right? Yes, and so he’s reluctant to ask her for help. Raffi’s kind of a brilliant conspiracy theorist who also is able to read the tea leaves in some

extraordinary ways, and he knows that he needs her eyes and her ears and her intuition. So, he goes to her, and she helps him get a pilot, Cristobal Rios, and Rios is also former Starfleet. He, too, had a falling out with Starfleet for reasons that become clearer as the season goes on. Rios is the captain of a ship called La Sirena. It is not a Starfleet ship. For his own reasons, he is really not interested in having a former captain on board. He had a captain in his life who was very meaningful to him who died in really strange circumstances, and Rios has never really gotten over it. So, it takes him awhile to embrace Picard in the presence of his life. Soji is the lynchpin. What else can you tell us about her? Soji, we come to find out, is many things, among which she is somebody who is doing research on what we call the ExBs, which are the former Borg, on a now-defunct Borg cube that has been taken over by the Romulans and cut off from the Borg Collective. So, the ExBs are Borg that have been reverted back to their various

03 Kurtzman and Patrick Stewart on stage at the Picard premiere. 04 Having fun at the TCA launch.

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states of humanity, but are all deeply traumatized by the time that they’ve spent in the Collective. In that way, they very much echo Picard’s own struggle with Locutus and what it meant for him to return to being human after that experience. Soji is there to do some research on the ExBs, and we come to find out that she doesn’t even realize the research that she’s doing has even greater significance for her. Then there’s Elnor, played by Evan Evagora… Elnor is a new kind of character. He’s part of a sect of Romulan warrior nuns. Actually, he’s the only male who was ever raised among this sect. This sect of Romulan warrior nuns adhere to a code of Radical Candor, which means they literally don’t

“[Picard] and Elnor have a very deep history, which is that he’s known Elnor since Elnor was a little kid.” understand lies. They’re not capable of it. They just say exactly what comes out. They also happen to be the single greatest combat fighters in any quadrant. Because Picard recognizes that he needs help, that he can’t fight the way he used to fight, he turns to them. He and Elnor have a very deep history, which is that he’s known Elnor since Elnor was a little kid. For reasons having to do more with circumstance than any choice Picard made, they were separated when Elnor was little, and that relationship remains very unresolved. Elnor is now a grown adult, and he’s angry at Picard because he feels abandoned by Picard. Picard has to rectify that and enlist Elnor’s help. And that’s our crew. Several Star Trek fan favorites have returned for Picard, including Brent Spiner as Data, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Jonathan Frakes as Riker, Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine/

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Annika Hansen and Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh Borg. How did you and your writing-producing team of Kirsten Beyer, Akiva Goldsman, and Michael Chabon decide which actors/ characters from Trek’s past to recruit for the show? The first rule was that we can’t just bring characters back for fan service, as much as we would love to do that. The characters had to have a very, very specific reason for being in this story. If the story could tell itself without those characters, then the characters wouldn’t, shouldn’t be there. So, as we broke stories over the course of the

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season, certain characters came to the foreground as being necessary to the storytelling, and that’s how we decided.

05 Alex Kurtzman was impressed by the honesty of Patrick Stewart’s performance.

What impressed you most about the way Sir Patrick Stewart embraced playing an older, ill Picard, and also being number one – no pun intended – on a Star Trek call sheet again? Well, he was very adamant about wanting to be unglamorous, which I thought was pretty great. He was really, really not interested in pretending he wasn’t nearing 80. That gave us tremendous latitude, actually. It gave us tremendous freedom to tell really, really

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great stories, because we didn’t have to pull our punches about the state of the character. Patrick was insistent on many things, even to the point where he said, “I want people to see the lines on my face,” which is lovely. We made choices around featuring the honesty of where the character was at. What I was amazed about was his stamina. It’s just a lot to be number one on the call sheet at any age, forget about at his age. He was spry, alert, incredible and so on it, and always so thoughtful about the work. He comes from theater, so he never comes unprepared, which was amazing. Just a real delight.

If Gene Roddenberry came down from the heavens and sat next to you for 10 minutes, or, when your day comes and you meet him upstairs, what do you hope he’d make of how you’re steering the franchise he created almost 54 years ago? It’s funny. I think about that, actually, probably more frequently than I should [laughs]. I hope that he recognizes that, well… First of all, he’d probably take issue with me for the amount of conflict the characters have. I know that was a big thing he struggled with on Next Gen. But my hope would be that

he would recognize now, from his grand perspective in the sky, how much that opened the door for Star Trek’s endurance, and how much it’s iterated and changed and yet has remained, I believe, very true to his vision. There isn’t really a day that goes by where we don’t think very consciously about how he would want the messaging of Star Trek to go, and is what we’re doing consistent with the messaging of Star Trek, as he envisioned it? It’s really important to all of us. I hope he would appreciate it. I hope he would be proud.

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ISA BRIONES

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ISA BRIONES

ISA BRIONES

DAHJ/SOJI Though Isa Briones wasn’t too familiar with Star Trek when she took on the twin roles of Dahj and Soji in Star Trek: Picard, the young actress found a connection with the character(s) in her own life, drawing on her background and heritage to bring the android descendants of Data to life.

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I 01 Isa Briones as Soji. 02 Soji quizzes ex-Borg Ramdha (Rebecca Wisocky), as Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) looks on. 03 Soji with Narek (Harry Treadaway), the Romulan agent who inveigles his way into her life.

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sa Briones, Star Trek: Picard’s leading lady, hails from a family of performers. Her father is Jon Jon Briones, best known for the stage musical Miss Saigon, while her mother, Megan Johnson Briones, is an actress and singer who has performed concerts all over the world. Then there’s her younger brother, Teo, who’s already amassed nearly 20 film and television credits. So, it’s no surprise to hear 21-year-old Isa – who counts among her own credits a recent year-long run in the touring version of the blockbuster stage show, Hamilton: An American Musical, as well as the films Takers and Lonely Boy, plus an episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace – characterize her own desire to act and sing as something just short of destiny. “Growing up around theater people, growing up with my parents, they were such great role models, and [their] being so good at what they were doing definitely built an inspiration for that in me,” says Briones, who turned 21 in January 2020. “But my parents were very adamant from an early age about, ‘We can try out the acting thing, but always know, if it’s not what you really want to do, you don’t have to do it.’ They didn’t want me to feel

like they were passing on the family trade, you know? But, truly, I grew into loving it so much, and I think we all naturally fell into it, in a certain way. Maybe it’s in our blood? I don’t know,” she says, laughing.

A NEW TREK Star Trek, however, had never seeped into the Briones family’s blood – or their acting resumes. Neither Isa or Teo, nor Jon Jon or Megan, had ever appeared in any Star Trek iteration.

“When I started working with some of the original cast from TNG, I was geeking out so much.”

“Truly, honestly, I had not seen much Star Trek,” said Briones, who was born in London, and raised primarily in New York and Los Angeles. “I had seen reruns of the original series, and maybe a few clips of The Next Generation, but I really was not well versed at all until I started getting down to the final callbacks and then began to hop through all of the Star Trek that was on Netflix. I happened to land on the perfect episode, which had to do with the history of my character, and that was very helpful. But I realized that I was turning into a major fan, very quickly, because when I started working with some of the original cast from TNG, I was geeking out so much. So, I really didn’t track how fast I had become such a big fan!”

THE TWIN DILEMMA Until Isa won her coveted role on Picard, the closest any of the four had come to reaching the final frontier was Teo, who co-stars with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Michael Dorn in an upcoming indie sci-fi/action film called Agent II. Isa shared the screen with Idris Elba in Takers, but that was in 2010, several years before he portrayed Krall in Star Trek Beyond.

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It’s no secret at this point that Briones plays – or, rather, played – two characters on Picard, namely the twin sister androids Dahj and Soji, who are descended from Data (Brent Spiner). Dahj dies in the very first episode, and it’s Soji whose plight and connection to Data compels the retired and ailing Jean-Luc Picard to leave his vineyard and his beloved dog, Number One, and head back out into the galaxy.

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ISA BRIONES

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ISA BRIONES

From there, Picard spins an epic tale that encompasses everything from Romulans and the Borg to romance and adventure. And it’s Soji for whom romance figures most prominently, as she strikes up a relationship with the Romulan agent, Narek (Harry Treadaway), whose intentions may not be on the up and up. “At the beginning of it, you see Dahj as a regular 20, 21-year-old girl who just got accepted into her dream school,” Briones explains. “Her life is taking off in a really exciting new way, but then a very tragic incident occurs that turns her entire world upside down. She doesn’t feel safe, and she can’t trust anyone. Yet, for some reason, she feels that she will be safe with Picard. This is a man that she has never even met before. Meeting him is what sets the whole story in motion. It’s him feeling protective of me, me wanting to trust him, but me still being wary, still being worried – then mayhem ensues.

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THE SOJI INSIDE “Soji is an incredible character to get to play as a young actress because everything about her really is me – who I am – and it’s cool to play a character that is so much like you,” Briones continues. “You get to examine your own character, your own life through the lens of someone else, through the extreme lens of a fictional character. “But the big thing with Soji is trying to decide for yourself who and what you are, because there’s a difference between who you are and who you feel you are. Part of that is deciding who you are allowed to be within your own self, which I relate to very much, being a mixed girl. I am Filipino on my dad’s side and on my mom’s side I’m of Swedish and Irish decent. “I think that’s a very relatable story as a mixed person, deciding that you can be both,” the actress adds. “You can be both Filipino and white, and you can be both synthetic and human, if that’s how you feel inside. It’s who you are, who you decide you are.”

AN ENSEMBLE ENTERPRISE During the Picard shoot, Briones interacted with much of the show’s impressive ensemble cast. First and

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ISA BRIONES

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foremost, not to mention the most often, there was Patrick Stewart. She also worked with Jonathan Del Arco, who returns to his role as Hugh Borg, as well as Treadaway and Brent Spiner, the latter of whom slipped on some familiar yellow contacts to once again portray Data. “Patrick Stewart, he is an incredible guy,” Briones raves. “We all know he is this legendary actor of theater and the big screen, but he is really just the most generous human being I’ve ever met. He very quickly made me feel so at home in the show, and he introduced all of us on the show to this universe. He really is the ideal captain for a series like this. “Definitely in the beginning of the series, I got to work with Jonathan Del Arco and Harry Treadaway quite a bit. That was incredible – me and Harry getting to navigate the Borg cube, but doing it with someone who has been with Star Trek for many years. Jonathan Del Arco knows Star Trek and the whole Borg idea like the back of his hand, but also getting to see him navigate his character in a whole new way after 20 years had passed was very, very cool. “And… Brent,” Briones continues. “I did get to work with him

quite a bit. That was so exciting. He’s quite the musical theater guy. I never got to sing with him, but Alison Pill [Doctor Jurati] and I did quite a bit of singing in the green room [at San Diego Comic-Con] that Brent was present for and, I must say, was quite disturbed by!”

CON ARTISTE Briones performed live in front of frenzied crowds every night when she played the dual roles of Peggy and Maria during the first national tour of Hamilton. However, even that only

“Does Soji make it to the end? Does she have many lives, that girl?” partially prepared her for the likes of representing Picard and meeting Star Trek fans this past summer and fall at San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con, Paris Comic-Con, and the Lucca Comics and Games Festival in Italy. “It is a wild experience!” Briones says. “Honestly, I thought doing theater before, especially going to

these huge theaters with Hamilton, would make San Diego and New York easy, for sure. But, man, once you’re up there in front of all those people, it is so nerve-wracking. But you immediately feel this sense of family, because everyone loves this franchise so much, and everyone is so excited for the show, and they just can’t wait to figure out who you are. We immediately went online after ComicCon and all the questions were, ‘Who is Dahj?’ I just love that there is such commitment already to this storyline, and so many people wanting to know who we all are.” Now, even though this is the Star Trek: Picard Official Collector’s Edition, we don’t know for sure what fate awaits Soji. But we’re boldly going to guess that the show’s writers wouldn’t kill off both Dahj and Soji. So, if our premise is correct, how hopeful is Briones that she’ll resume her role as Soji when Season 2 rolls camera? “Oh, that would be a dream,” the actress replies. “Does Soji make it to the end? Does she have many lives, that girl?” Briones laughs. “I would love for this to go on to Season 2 and, for Soji, or any other rendition of her, I guess, to go forward and learn more.”

04 A desperate Dahj seeks out the man she has seen in her visions, Jean-Luc Picard. 05 Soji with Dr. Naashala (Chelsea Harris).

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ALISON PILL

ALISON PILL

DR. JURATI Alison Pill identifies her character in Star Trek: Picard, Dr. Agnes Jurati, as something of a loner, noting that as a result her people skills perhaps aren’t the greatest. But as the actress points out, the cyberneticist has that in common with the rest of Jean-Luc Picard’s new crew.

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ALISON PILL

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ALISON PILL

“I

definitely grew up in the heyday of Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Alison Pill recalls. “I was very much aware of that show. Growing up, our neighbor was a huge Star Trek fan. Her family were huge fans. I remember going all around my house with my headband on, pretending to be Geordi [La Forge]. It was definitely a part of my life growing up, but I was not a massive fan, by any means. I would say I was familiar with Star Trek. So, when I got Picard, I knew that working with our writers – who are such amazing fans of the franchise – would make it obvious what things I should catch up on in order to best serve the franchise.” Pill, who hails from Toronto, Canada, was just 11 years old when she started acting professionally. Early

“It’s one of the successes of our show that you don’t need too much backstory to make sense of the story we’re telling, but knowing the backstory will make it that much more exciting.” credits included The New Ghostwriter Mysteries, The Last Don II, and the cult film favorite, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang. She’s also appeared in such films and television shows as Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Milk, In Treatment, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Midnight in Paris, Goon, The Family, American Horror Story: Cult, Miss Sloane, and Vice, plus the upcoming genre shows, Devs and Them: Covenant. Among her stage roles are a Tony Award-nominated turn in the Broadway production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, as well as The Miracle Worker and Three Tall Women.

DOCTOR WHO? Pill jumped at the opportunity to enter the Trek universe with Picard. She

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received an offer to play Dr. Agnes Jurati and signed on following a conversation with executive producer Alex Kurtzman. Dr. Jurati is based at the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa, where she specialized in robotics and artificial intelligence, collaborating for a time with cyberneticist Dr. Bruce Maddox (seen in the Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man”). However, a ban on synthetic life forms has forced Jurati to deal solely in theoretical applications, which makes her understandably intrigued when Jean-Luc Picard approaches her about joining his crew as he seeks to protect the young “synth,” Soji (Isa Briones), from Romulan assassins determined to destroy her.

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ALISON PILL

For me, watching those episodes was helpful in terms of my own character’s knowledge. And, for us, for the actors, the scripts were so good that they were kind of all-encompassing anyway. Plus, everybody was able to ask any questions they had, and, like I said, we had a lot of people that we could turn to who knew the answers.”

THREE’S A CROWD

As she geared up for Picard, Pill recalls, she took full advantage of the writers’ Trek-spertise and heeded their advice about what older Star Trek shows and movies might best prepare her to navigate the universe in which Jurati operates. The actress screened several “android-specific” episodes from across the franchise and “a bunch” of TNG episodes that put the spotlight on the Borg. “There’s a list that [Picard staff writer] Kirsten Beyer sent of helpful Borg episodes, and they were really great fun,” Pill says. “It’s one of the successes of our show, I think, that you don’t need too much backstory to make sense of the story we’re telling, but knowing the backstory will make [the series] that much more exciting.

Jurati’s three main interactions on Picard place her in the company of the show’s honorable and heroic title character, as well as Cristobal “Chris” Rios (Santiago Cabrera) and Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd). Rios captains his own ship, La Sirena, which Picard and his crew hitch a ride on as they head off on their perilous, unauthorized mission. Raffi is a figure from Picard’s past and Rios’ present, who – initially, at least – very reluctantly leaves the relative comfort of her RV in the quiet middle of nowhere to join Picard, Jurati, Rios, and the others on their adventure. Jurati, according to Pill, befriends Picard, sparks with Rios, and clashes with Raffi. “Her relationship with Picard… I’d say that they’re really colleagues,” Pill opines. “I think they have a lot in common. I think they have a lot of love for each other by the end of Season 1, and have built this really beautiful relationship. I don’t think it’s as simple as mentor/mentee, or father/ daughter, or whatever it is. But I have a great many scenes with Patrick, for which I’m incredibly grateful. Picard has offered her the chance to be a part of something for the first time in her life, unlike anything she’s ever been a part of. So, she’s incredibly grateful to him and, also, he remains this incredible, inspiring leader. I don’t think she’s ever had anybody in her life be that for her, to that degree. “And the rest of the crew… She and Rios establish a somewhat flirtatious relationship. He’s the captain of the ship, and he’s played by Santiago Cabrera, so who can blame her?” she laughs. “And then Michelle plays a kind of prickly pear, so it’s been interesting establishing how they get along, in that they are so different. Michelle’s character is so technically knowledgeable about the ship, and about data and hacking

01 Alison Pill as Dr. Agnes Jurati. 02 Picard and Dr. Jurati discuss Data’s descendants, Dahj and Soji. 03 Jurati boards La Sirena with Picard to join the search for Soji.

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and computers. You’d think they find some common ground, and they do… eventually. “But I also think Jurati is a little bit of a loner,” Pill continues. “She’s spent a lot of time, alone, in a lab, so her people skills are not the greatest. But nobody on the ship really has great people skills, actually! It’s one of the things I love about the show, is that we really are this mismatched group of people who don’t quite know how to function in the world.”

GETTING ON SWIMMINGLY Though not all the characters on Picard get along, Pill hastens to add that all the actors got on swimmingly. “I love everybody so very much,” she enthuses. “I’m constantly amazed watching Patrick speak publicly at the Comic-Cons. He’s just such an

“There’s no greater joy than watching Picard and his Number One chat.” incredible off-the-cuff speaker. I don’t think anybody does it better. I’ve never seen it done better. And to watch him work on set, and to see him inhabit Picard, is such a gift. Also, to see him with some of the legacy cast… Jonathan Frakes directed two episodes for us, and there’s no greater joy than watching Picard and his Number One chat. “In terms of everybody else, we really have become such a tight-knit group of people, and it’s so special, this group,” Pill continues. “We kind of followed the course of Season 1, establishing everybody separately and then bringing us all together on the ship. That’s how the season ended up for the cast, where we started to know a few people at a time, and then, by the end, we were this big group. It’s wonderful to be part of such a talented, kind ensemble who all do their very best to make the show as good as it can be.” The “legacy cast” that Pill mentions counted among them not just Frakes, but also Jeri Ryan, Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis, and Jonathan

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Del Arco. Though she doesn’t want to spoil anything by revealing if she acted alongside all of them – separately or in any combinations – Pill does acknowledge that she shared scenes with Spiner. The two co-starred in An Unexpected Love, a TV movie that aired in 2003 and was, coincidentally, directed by future Star Trek: Discovery director Lee Rose, and also featured Star Trek: Deep Space Nine guest star Leslie Hope as the mother of Pill’s character. “We did that movie in Vancouver, and I was maybe 16 or 17,” Pill says. “Brent is just the smartest, funniest human. He’s a joy to be around, and such an excellent actor. Obviously, people will be thrilled to see him, but I think the way his scenes with Patrick and everybody else are written, it’ll just move people to tears and laughter and all the great emotions.”

PUBLICIZING PICARD Production on Star Trek: Picard wrapped in late August, 2019. Since then, the show’s cast have been doing their bit to publicize the series. That’s

STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

04 Alison Pill pauses for a pic at the Picard premiere. 05 An expert in AI, Dr. Jurati has been limited to theoretical work since the ban on “synths.”

meant high-profile appearances at various Comic-Cons and conventions around the globe, plus sitting for interviews as the buzz built toward the premiere in January. Not exactly a newcomer to such experiences, Pill attended San Diego Comic-Con in 2010 on behalf of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and did double duty at New York Comic-Con in 2019, when she represented both Picard and her other new show, Devs. “It’s pretty wild. I have a very easy job in that everybody wants to talk to Patrick! And I couldn’t really say anything about my part, so, I usually just had to say one thing and then I’d get to stand and watch Patrick. So, as of now, it’s the easiest job in the world,” she says with a laugh. “But, everybody, especially the people who have been through it already, has said, ‘You are unprepared for what this means.’ So, that’s what I’ve accepted. I’m like, ‘OK, I have no idea what to expect!’ “Whatever comes,” Pill concludes, “will be weird, and surreal, and hopefully mostly fun.”

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MICHAEL CHABON

MICHAEL CHABON

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/SHOWRUNNER Michael Chabon knows Star Trek. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author has been a fan since the original series, avidly watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and each subsequent spinoff in turn. Now, as showrunner of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, he has the honor – not to mention the responsibility – of shepherding Jean-Luc Picard through the newest incarnation of Trek.

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ichael Chabon brings quite the pedigree to his roles as executive producer, showrunner, and writer of Star Trek: Picard. As an author, he’s won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as Nebula, Hugo, and Sidewise awards. His bestselling books include The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Gentlemen of the Road, Telegraph Avenue, and Moonglow. He’s also dabbled in Hollywood, developing several as-yetunrealized film projects and working on the screenplays for John Carter and Spider-Man 2. Chabon was collaborating on a script with Star Trek: Discovery writer and producer Akiva Goldsman when Goldsman invited him to write a Star Trek: Short Treks episode. Chabon, a lifelong Trek fan, took him up on the offer, contributing “Calypso” and, later, “Q&A.” These episodes opened the airlocks for Chabon’s participation in Picard. Here, Chabon takes us deep inside the epic return of Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard.

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“The 10-episode arc of the season is, fundamentally, at its core, Picard’s arc.”

STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

Star Trek: Picard – The Official Collector’s Edition: How would you set up Picard as a story, and, beneath that, what’s the emotional core of the 10 episodes? Michael Chabon: The heart of the show is revealed by the title of the show; the heart of the show is JeanLuc Picard. The 10-episode arc of the season is, fundamentally, at its core, Picard’s arc. We have an incredible cast of characters, all of whom have their own stories told. Isa Briones’ character is almost as prominent – her story arc, the arcs, actually, of the characters that she plays [Dahj and Soji]. That story is key to the season. But at the beginning and in the end, this is the story of Jean-Luc Picard. Ultimately, it ends up being a story about – and there’s no way to say this without sounding really boring or pretentious – but it’s a story about the meaning of life. It’s about the purpose of life and how we find significance in life, what makes life meaningful. What makes human life meaningful to humans? Along the way the way, we’re working a lot of themes that have

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MICHAEL CHABON

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run all the way through Star Trek. There’s always been that question of, “What does it mean to be human?” That’s a question that Star Trek has been posing from the very beginning, and it’s been finding all kinds of ways to try and answer that question: by telling stories about aliens, nonhumanoid species, or humanoid species that are distinct or different from Terran humanoid life. Or, specifically, when they’d tell stories with the character of Mr Spock, or in the case of Next Generation, the character of Data. On Voyager, it was Seven of Nine and the Doctor. The questions of “What does it mean to be

“What does it mean to be human? That’s a question that Star Trek has been posing from the very beginning” human? How do we define ourselves as humans? What is the ultimate meaning or purpose of life? And how do humans make meaning in life?” have become the questions of Star Trek. Picard delivers Romulans, the Borg, and Starfleet. It features new characters and old characters. The series threads in elements from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek Nemesis, Star Trek: Voyager, and other Trek shows and movies. How did you and the Picard team decide what had already been covered enough, and what to expand on? There are a fascinating wealth of options – almost too much to choose from. You got it. It’d be very easy to allow yourself to become driven by the completely understandable desire to incorporate as much as you can. You’d love to approach the Star Trek universe in all its existing canons, and all its continuities. I feel like you can take a kind of salad bar approach, where you start out with an empty plate and then hit the salad bar, and then when you get to checkout, you have everything from raisins to bacon bits to olives to bean sprouts on that plate. You’ve

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MICHAEL CHABON

piled every single thing possible onto that plate without regard for whether it would taste good, just because it’s all there, and how can you say no to bacon? How can you say no to olives? So, you just go for it. It was very easy to go do that, and there were moments that it was tempting to incorporate as many fun things as [we could]. Indeed, when news originally broke that Picard was coming back, Star Trek fans immediately started preparing their wish lists… It has to have this, and it has to have that… I share that fandom. I am a fan, and I have that same wish of, “We could do this. We could do that.” All of us working on the show, we instinctively – and also formally – agreed to resist that impulse. First of all, we had very clear guidelines from Patrick himself saying that he wasn’t interested in anything that smacked of bringing something back for the sake of bringing it back. If we were going to bring something back – say, the Borg – then we had to do that in a way that hadn’t been done before. If we were going to bring the Romulans back, we had to do it in a way that hadn’t been done before. From Patrick’s point of view, everything we were bringing back from some previous version of The Next Generation or the movies had to justify its presence by virtue of the fact that we were showing a different side of it, a different angle on it, incorporating it in a fresh way. So, there was that. And then, from our point of view, we agreed we wouldn’t bring anything back, anyone back, any plot elements previously established in continuity, unless we judged that it was actually necessary for telling the story we were trying to tell in Picard.

01 Michael Chabon at the Picard US premiere. 02 Promotional poster art for the show.

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03 Chabon with fellow producers Kirsten Beyer and Akiva Goldsman, with the Picard cast behind, at San Diego Comic-Con.

In a sense, you limited yourselves? When we have brought back characters, such as the character of Hugh from The Next Generation, or the character of Seven of Nine, or the characters of Riker and Troi, we did so because we needed them. We needed those characters. We needed to have that character in that place, at that time, doing whatever is necessary for telling the story we’re trying to tell now.

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We never did it gratuitously. I really do believe that there’s no single element incorporated from earlier series that is done simply as fan service. There’s no, “Because we could, we did.” All the elements from earlier series or movies that are in Picard are there because they are helping us to further the story of Jean-Luc Picard and this journey that he takes. This is your first experience as a showrunner. What has it been like, and how different has it been from perhaps what you had in your head when you first walked into it? I had no idea what I was walking into [laughs]. It was, without question, the hardest I have ever worked at anything in my life, in that concentrated way. I’m the father of four children. That is, no question, the hardest job I’ve ever had. But it’s spread out, you know? Being a father is something you’re always doing, but there are

“We had very clear guidelines from Patrick himself saying that he wasn’t interested in anything that smacked of bringing something back for the sake of bringing it back.” long stretches where your children are elsewhere, not needing you, where you get to be by yourself, with your spouse. But as far as concentrated efforts, this was six months of 18-hour days. Every day. I was getting up to be on set at 7.30 in the morning and, typically, I stayed on set all 12 hours. We’d wrap, I’d then go home, grab a bite, and then write until 1.30, 2.30 in the morning. Then, I’d get up and do it over again. So, in terms of the sheer hours involved, and then the range of tasks that are involved – and the writing itself is this huge part of it – the production side of things, and the constant stream of decisions that you have to make, trying to put out fires as

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they arrive… It was so much more, so much bigger a job than I’d imagined. I knew it was going to be big. I just had no idea that it was going to be so hard. But you loved it, right? One thing I will say is I loved every minute of it, even the stressful moments. They’re challenging, and there’s so much novelty to it. For someone who has spent their entire creative career in a room alone, to be collaborating so intensely with so many different people, on so many different things – costumes and props, the technical side of photography and lighting and all that stuff – was great. And then to do the writing all at the same time, that was so much fun. Every time I sat down at the keyboard and tried to write – even if it was just to fix a few lines for a scene that was

shooting the next day – it was just pure pleasure for me. The second thing I will say is that I had so much help, especially from my partner from the beginning, from the moment I walked into the meeting… Akiva Goldsman. We understand you refer to him as your sensei… He was there for me from that first director meeting that I attended as showrunner. He was sitting right next to me, always there to warn me about potential pitfalls, giving me the benefit of his knowledge and experience making features and television. He was there to just show me the ropes and back me up. At a certain point, my wife [Ayelet Waldman], who is also a writer and who has been my partner

in our attempt to make television – primarily, we worked together on the series Unbelievable on Netflix, and she helped me to create that – she came on about halfway through and helped me from there. And then Alex Kurtzman, [Supervising Producer] Kirsten Beyer… I had so much support from the people helping me out, it just made it possible for a novice to be able to do this impossible job. Patrick Stewart is not only the star of Picard, but an active executive producer as well. What was your takeaway from collaborating with him? He’s witty and neat, and passionate and committed. And he was interested in finding new challenges at the age of… what, he was 78 at the time, I think. There’s something quite

04 Realizing he can’t accomplish his mission alone, Picard sets off in search of allies. 05 Michael Chabon chats with Michelle Hurd (Raffi) and Patrick Stewart (Picard) during a break from filming Hurd’s introductory scenes.

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MICHAEL CHABON

inspiring about that, about meeting someone so committed to pushing his craft and the edge of his artwork farther out than it has been before, at an age where he could just be out in the world, and doing the same thing he’s been doing, and collecting a paycheck. That doesn’t seem to be part of his make-up at all. He’s only interested in doing things that are a challenge for him. How about the younger cast members? What did they bring to the table? First of all, I think some of our cast members really are insanely young. Evan [Evagora] and Isa, I’m not even quite sure to this day if either of them is even 20 yet. They are definitely young, fresh faces. And then we have some really experienced actors in our cast, like Michelle [Hurd]. Certainly, you wouldn’t know it to look at her. But the thing that feels truest to me when I think about our entire cast, is we got so lucky. We have a huge cast on this show. I’ll never forget a moment from our first table read, from the first block of Episodes 1 and 2. We were so happy we’d gotten the actors that we’d gotten. Some of them, like Alison Pill, I knew her work and had admired her already, and the many things she’s done over the years. But we were at that table read, and I remember sitting there with Akiva and we just patted each other. We heard what they were able to do, even just sitting around a table, and nobody’s really turning it up all the way yet in that context. But still, I just had this feeling: “These are the actors that we’ve gotten!” They’re as ready as Patrick, and that’s saying a lot. And it just became more apparent over the course of the season. In fact, one of the biggest pleasures, and one of the biggest surprises, was discovering our actors. I don’t have enough experience to know whether this is normal or if we just got incredibly lucky, but our

actors, with their precious insights, became crucial creative partners for me in understanding the characters that they were playing. They came to me with ideas, with thoughts, with questions, with, “I feel like I wouldn’t say it this way. I’d say it that way” – something like that. Can you share an example? I remember Alison Pill coming to me very, very early on, when I barely understood the character I was writing myself. She had this

“Our actors, with their precious insights, became crucial creative partners for me in understanding the characters that they were playing.” insight from lines in the script that Doctor Jurati has this complicated relationship with authority. I thought she was about to say, “You know why she has problems with authority…?” But what she actually said – and it was so true, and I hadn’t understood this myself – was that Jurati kowtows to authority. She subjugates herself to authority eagerly. That really hit a giant clue for all of us going forward in writing the character of Dr. Jurati. In many ways, that becomes the theme of Jurati’s storyline over the course of the season, how she has to be in a relationship with various kinds of authority that have imposed themselves upon her, that she has to subjugate herself to in one way or another in the course of her life, and how that plays out across the season. That was really magical to find, that these actors could be collaborators, could be partners in that way. And I loved it. 06 Picard and his pooch, Number One, in a contemplative moment.

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MICHAEL CHABON

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MICHELLE HURD

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MICHELLE HURD

MICHELLE HURD

RAFFI For Michelle Hurd, Star Trek: Picard represents the culmination of 30 years of TV and movie roles. The actress channeled all her experience into the character of Raffi, using it to create a damaged, hard-bitten hero whose history with Jean-Luc Picard has been decidedly turbulent.

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MICHELLE HURD

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ichelle Hurd is capping the 30th year of her career with the greatest gig of her life: the butt-kicking, ready-to-rumble Rafaela “Raffi” Musiker on Star Trek: Picard. Get her talking about both – three decades as an actor and now joining the Picard cast – and the adjectives spew out faster than phaser fire. “It’s insane, amazing, surreal, very strange,” she enthuses. “It’s all those words. The thing that is so beautiful about Picard – and I keep saying to my family and friends – is it took 30 years for me to get a really well-defined, well-textured, layered, complex, imperfectly perfect character. And I thank [Executive Producers] Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, and Patrick Stewart for that. So, I’m pretty proud of my 30-year legacy.”

“Star Trek has always been about how we work with individuals who are like us, or who are not like us.”

01 Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker. 02 Picard and Raffi during their Starfleet days. 03 Picard turns to Raffi for help in his quest.

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Hurd pauses for a long moment when asked what the 2019 version of Michelle might suggest if she could whisper some advice into the ear of Michelle, circa 1989. “It’s interesting,” she replies. “I am from an artist family. My mother [Merlyn] and father [Hugh] met on stage. And then when the kids were born, my mother started working for HeadStart and my father continued to act until he passed. I was very privy to the struggles of a man of color working in this industry, especially back in the day. “So, I’ve always entered every working situation with the same kind of gratefulness, thankfulness, and hunger to do the best I can. I’ve never really been, ‘Waaah, I want more, waah.’ I’ve never sat and whined about the things that are not happening for me, or felt bad about my situation. I’ve always been very glad and appreciative of every job. “So, the thought would be to say, ‘Don’t worry, Michelle. Hang in

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there!’” Hurd continues. “But that was never actually a thought of mine. I never felt inadequate. I never felt like I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. I’ve always just kept my head to the ground and did my work. I believed that talent and skill and integrity will lead to longevity. So, I would have just said to Michelle, ‘Do what you need to do. Do your work, be proud of it. Your work will speak for yourself. And it will happen for you.’”

INSPIRATIONAL TREK Hurd counts among her credits dozens of films and television shows, among them Random Hearts, Beyond Belief:

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Fact or Fiction (narrated by Jonathan Frakes), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, ER, Gossip Girl, The Glades (in which Jonathan Frakes directed her), Hawaii 5-0, Daredevil, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Blindspot, and Younger. The actress notes that prior to coming on board Picard, she’d never auditioned for any Trek series or movie, but was intimately familiar with the original series. “It also goes right back to my family and my childhood,” she says. “As I just told you, my father was an actor and a man of color, working in this industry. When we were growing up, he really wanted

MICHELLE HURD

to make sure that we watched things that were inclusive of all people of color. And one of the shows that he was really into, that we as a family would continuously watch, was Star Trek. It had Uhura [Nichelle Nichols], but we watched all the characters, not just Uhura. It was the fact that the show was about humanity, about inclusion, about integration, about racism. Star Trek has always been about how we work with individuals who are like us, or who are not like us. “So, for me, Star Trek literally was a beautiful celebration of my childhood, because that’s what I grew up on, watching these stories about humanity,” she continues. “It’s had great impact on me. I just feel this is a perfect situation for me. It’s the perfect job for me. When I first got Picard, [my] body just [went] into a whirlwind: ‘Whooo! Star Trek! I can’t believe it!’ It’s an incredible, kind of emotional tidal wave.”

SHARED HISTORY Hurd describes Raffi as “phenomenal” and explains that she and Picard share some history. They worked together in the Federation and she considered him a saving grace. “Raffi had been going through some really stressful personal issues,” the actress notes. “She has some vices. She drinks, she smokes, and he, by working with her, really got her passionate and focused on work and on living again. “Then a situation happened with some Romulans on Mars, where she felt the Federation needed to step in

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04 Having felt betrayed by Picard 15 years ago, Raffi is not exactly over the moon to see him again. 05 Hurd poses for pictures with fans at the Picard Hollywood premiere.

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and help, and rescue these millions of Romulans. She was really relying on Picard to take her to the Federation and make a stand. Instead, he resigned, and her faith in mankind, and in herself, and in him, went down in that moment, with that one action. She just went, ‘You know what? Forget it.’ And she tumbled back into her vices. She felt really betrayed by Picard and she was really betrayed by the Federation, and Raffi just doesn’t want to have anything to do with it again. “So, when, 15 years later, Jean-Luc shows up on the doorstep of her RV and asks her for help, she doesn’t want to help at all,” Hurd adds. “But he’s more to her than she realized, more than just a mentor. He’s almost a father figure, a best friend, a lover, a sibling. He’s a lot

to her, and she can’t turn her back, and she decides to help him. So, that’s where Raffi comes back into Picard’s life.”

A MOTHER’S STRUGGLE Raffi interacts with most of the regulars on the show, forging fast friendships in some cases, but not in other instances. She also spends time with an important supporting character, namely Raffi’s son, Gabe (Mason Gooding). “Gabe is one of the things that haunts her,” Hurd reveals. “In her own upbringing, her parents worked for the Federation and they shuffled her off to live with her aunts and uncles. They were not there for her. She held a lot of resentment about that, that she didn’t really grow up with her parents. And it’s sad, but kind of classic, that she’d repeat

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the same gesture she experienced as a child. She was still struggling, trying to figure out her stuff, and so she ended up passing her kid off to be raised by relatives, while she went off to work for the Federation. “When she sees him again, basically 14, 15 years have passed,” Hurd says. “What’s powerful about that story is that there’s sort of a fairy tale concept of a father or mother coming back to reunite with a child, and everything’s happy, but we have to remember and respect the fact that the child doesn’t necessarily have to say, ‘Yes, you’re allowed back in my life.’ This boy, her son, says, ‘No, you’re not allowed back in my life. I’m not ready to forgive you or receive you.’ That’s powerful and

MICHELLE HURD

“Michael Chabon has given us words to live through and to bring to life, and relationships that are deep and complex and real and authentic.”

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painful, but I think it’s an incredibly important story to tell, because children have every right to make those decisions for their sanity. “Then there’s Rios [Santiago Cabrera],” Hurd continues. “He’s the captain. Raffi and Rios are good friends. Rios is one of the only people Raffi feels comfortable with and trusts, in a weird way, just because they’re both damaged. They both have a problem with the Federation. They’re two peas in a pod. They’re partners in crime. She absolutely relies on him. “As far as Dr. Jurati [Alison Pill], absolutely every single instinct tells her to not trust this person. She doesn’t know Jurati from anybody, and she hasn’t been able to run a

“I’m really proud of this one,” she asserts. “I’ve been in this industry for 30 years. I’ve worked on some really great projects. I’m proud of all the work that I’ve done. But this is one I’m really excited about. It’s got good stories. Michael Chabon has given us words to live through and to bring to life, and relationships that are deep and complex and real and authentic. I think everybody’s going to be really excited and really proud, and we are going to do everybody justice. “The one thing that Patrick Stewart is really adamant about whenever we’re on set, whenever we’re working, is being respectful to the fans. If there’s anything he thinks rings untrue, we don’t do it. We change it. We work around it. We figure out how to be truthful, and authentic, and respectful to this beautiful world we’re about to be part of. I’m so excited for the fans to see it. And I’m so excited for everybody to meet Raffi.”

security check on her. So, she has a lot of hesitations with that one at the very beginning, but then she starts to have a little more space for her in her life when she realizes what Agnes has been going through. But I don’t know if they’ll ever be buddies.”

SENSE OF ANTICIPATION At the time of this conversation, Picard was weeks away from streaming worldwide. However, thanks to having trekked the globe for promotional appearances in the United States, France, and Italy, Hurd could sense the fan anticipation for the show. And, the actress hastens to add, she wholeheartedly believes that Picard will live up to everyone’s hopes – including her own.

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SANTIAGO CABRERA

SANTIAGO CABRERA

RIOS As captain of La Sirena, Cristobal “Chris” Rios is charged with piloting Jean-Luc Picard and his makeshift new crew on their maiden voyage. But as Santiago Cabrera notes, Rios doesn’t just have to deal with a bunch of new people on his ship; he also has to deal with multiple versions of himself…

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“R 01 Santiago Cabrera as Chris Rios, captain of La Sirena. 02 Rios pilots his ship via holographic controls. 03 Costume design by Christine Bieselin Clark, concept costume art by Greg Hopwood. 04 Have crew, will travel: Rios with Picard, Elnor, and Raffi.

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ios is ex-Starfleet, so that’s a connection that he has to Picard and his world,” Santiago Cabrera says by way of introducing Cristobal “Chris” Rios, his character on Star Trek: Picard. “But Rios had a very traumatic experience in his past. He’s a guy with a lot of inner demons due to a fallout he had, a bad experience which created the fallout, and he holds a grudge towards Starfleet. Now, Rios meets Picard, who is the walking embodiment of Starfleet. He is Starfleet himself. Immediately, there is a reticence, and a challenging aspect there. Rios isn’t too warm to Picard. He’s just not ready to receive him yet. “So, that’s the history there, between the two of them,” says Cabrera, who was born in Venezuela and raised primarily in the UK. “Without it being a direct history between them, there’s a history with Picard in terms of their relationships to Starfleet. Rios sees Picard as Starfleet, so he doesn’t like him right off the bat. He’s holding a grudge, basically. Also, Rios is a pilot. He’s the pilot of a ship called La Sirena, and Picard winds up on that ship. So, there will be some conflict there, when Picard comes on board.”

NO LOVE FOR STARFLEET Rios, as noted, is not a fan of Starfleet. While he associates Picard with Starfleet, Picard is no fan either, and hardly recognizes the organization he once served so proudly. Raffi [Michelle Hurd], too, harbors issues with Starfleet, and Dr. Agnes Jurati [Alison Pill] wants nothing more than to put as much distance as possible between herself and Starfleet and the Daystrom Institute. What gives? Why does resentment toward, and

“Rios sees Picard as Starfleet, so he doesn’t like him right off the bat.” disappointment in, Starfleet seem to be the common denominator amongst this unlikely group? Could it have something to do with the Borg, the Romulans, the destruction of Mars, the resulting tens of thousands of deaths, and/or the ban on synthetics that followed? “Well, you’ll find out when you watch it, but a lot of that will become very clear,” replies Cabrera, whom moviegoers and television viewers have

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previously seen in Heroes, Merlin, Che, Transformers: The Last Knight, The Musketeers, and Salvation. “I think there’s an interesting journey to be taken, of ‘Why is that?’ and, ‘Where does it go in relation to that?’ “What I find really interesting in the set-up and the premise is that Picard is just put together with this team. Actually it’s Riker [Jonathan Frakes] who asks Picard, ‘Who’s your crew?’ Picard says something along the lines of, ‘You know, these guys carry a lot more baggage than we ever did.’ And that’s it exactly. They do carry a lot of baggage, all these guys, every one of them. All of our characters have very troubled pasts, and they carry all that baggage with them. I think it makes a really interesting dynamic that we’ve never seen before.”  

ME, MYSELF, AND I

Speaking of interesting dynamics, there are plenty of those to be glimpsed aboard La Sirena between Rios and, well, Rios, and Rios, and Rios… and Rios. That’s to say that La Sirena boasts a wide array of high-tech gadgetry, not the least of which includes holographic versions of Rios, each with its own personality and attitude. Evidently, until the arrival of Picard and his makeshift

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SANTIAGO CABRERA

crew, Rios preferred isolation so much that he would only populate his ship with… himself. “I really loved that about the character,” Cabrera says. “Obviously, apart from how fun it is as an actor to play different versions of yourself, what really caught me was the idea of a man who is broken into many pieces. It’s almost like he needs these versions to function, you know? In a way, he’s isolated from the outside world, but he needs other people to function. “What I loved to play about that is that it’s almost like there’s a love-hate relationship between him and these other versions of him. Rios pretends he doesn’t know these guys and doesn’t like these guys, but, ultimately from a psychological level, they make him complete. I found that really interesting, a really good way into the character. “I really like how they wrote it,” he continues. “It’s something that slowly comes into play. You’re figuring it out as you go along because you won’t discover them all straight away. Every episode, you get a little glimpse of someone new, and you

go, ‘Oh, there’s another one.’ Then, eventually, it will all pay off, and you will understand the nature of these characters and how they came about.”

A NEW CREW Rios, of course, must intermingle with the new folks now roaming La Sirena. In addition to Picard, Rios’ primary bonds are with Dr. Jurati and Raffi. In fact, even in the Picard trailer, there’s more than a hint of romance between the doctor and Rios. “With Agnes, it’s great fun,” Cabrera enthuses. “Even at the script read-through, it just brought life to this great relationship. It got kind of love/hate. Rios and Agnes, they’re both very much people that need comfort and love. At the beginning, it’s almost like they’re convenient for each other, and then in a way, they’re bad. Alison’s great. I think we really build on it. The writers were very smart as well, the way they structured it. It was very organic, very real, and not this forced falling in love. I think it’s a very unique way of coming together. “And Raffi, she and Rios go way back,” he says. “Raffi is the one who

puts Rios in touch with Picard in the first place. [Picard] needs a pilot, and Raffi says, ‘I got a guy.’ Raffi has her own issues and carries a lot of baggage herself, and so does Rios. What I love about our relationship – and you can see it – is that they’re kindred souls. It’s that almost brother/sister thing with people when they don’t have anything to prove. You get to see them being nice to each other. It’s just there. It’s a very easy banter with Michelle. We found that straight away. There are some beautiful, touching moments that will start to happen between those two characters.” No doubt to the shock of absolutely nobody, Cabrera saves his utmost words of admiration for Patrick Stewart. Cabrera was the first actor after Stewart to join the Picard cast. He cites “not just the franchise and what Star Trek means to so many people,” but the opportunity to work with the Trek legend as “huge incentives” to sign on for the show. “Patrick lived up to that and more,” Cabrera says. “He’s just incredibly generous, incredibly present, and a great leader. He carries everything and he just elevated the

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05 Picard follows in the wake of one of Rios’ holographic alter egos. 06 Master and commander: one man and his ship.

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“Rios and Agnes, they’re both very much people that need comfort and love.” whole show. I think the show is great, and his presence and influence make it even better. And Patrick is fun to be around. He keeps things light and fun on set, and just owns this world like nobody else.”  

THE OLD GUARD

In addition to Stewart, Cabrera also interacted quite a bit with three other familiar Star Trek veterans: Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan, and Brent Spiner. Frakes briefly reprises his Star Trek: The Next Generation role as Riker and directed two installments of Picard, while Ryan appears in a handful of episodes as her beloved Star Trek: Voyager character, Seven of Nine/ Annika Hansen, and Spiner returns as Data. “Another one who owns this world like nobody is Jonathan Frakes, not only as an actor, but as a director,” Cabrera notes. “He’s just phenomenal. It’s one of the best experiences I’ve had. He creates just such a fun and jovial set, and also, as well, the ownership and knowledge he has of Star Trek is incredible. I had very little [to do] in the first episodes, so I really got into it with Jonathan, and it was great because I was still kind of creating the character, and the world, and the ship, and he was such a good person to go to with questions. He knows so much and he was fundamental in giving me the

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freedom to bring things into it, and to create Rios’ world on the ship. “And, then, Jeri, she was fantastic, and she’s great to be around,” he continues. “She’s so good as Seven of Nine, and so different to what we initially knew of her. And then, of course, Brent, we got to work together, too. He’s just amazing to be around, and so good. It was surreal to have him… to have them all there. I watched many, many hours of Star Trek before we started filming; to be in that world, and then to be in their presence was just incredible.” Of course, seeing is believing. At the time of our conversation, Star Trek: Picard is still weeks away from its premiere. Cabrera shares that as over the moon as he is for fans to experience Picard, he’s equally jazzed to see for himself how the show has come together. “There are so many amazing things that we haven’t seen yet,” he says. “Just to see my ship in space, to see all the effects and all the amazing work behind the scenes that was done, the work of everyone else, the other worlds, the other scenes that I haven’t had a chance to see yet… I’m very, very excited to see it. The scripts were so wonderful and the world they created is so rich. “I’m excited to see it all up on the screen,” Cabrera concludes. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

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HANELLE CULPEPPER

HANELLE CULPEPPER DIRECTOR

Having directed two acclaimed episodes of Star Trek: Discovery – Season 1’s “Vaulting Ambition” and Season 2’s “The Red Angel” – Hanelle Culpepper was a natural choice to helm the opening two installments of Star Trek: Picard. But as she explains, those two episodes eventually became three…

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leepy Hollow led to Star Trek: Discovery, which led to Star Trek: Picard. That’s the short version of the long story that resulted in Hanelle Culpepper directing the first three episodes of Picard, and thus creating the template for the rest of the season. Here, Culpepper – who counts among her other directing credits episodes of such shows as Parenthood, Criminal Minds, How to Get Away with Murder, The Originals, Gotham, Supergirl, and Counterpart – discusses her Star Trek experiences past, present and, hopefully, future…

You worked with Picard executive producer Alex Kurtzman on Sleepy Hollow. Was it that connection that led you to Discovery? I think it was. I had met Olatunde [Osunsanmi], who is the producing director of Star Trek: Discovery, back when I did Sleepy Hollow. He really

Star Trek: Picard – The Official Collector’s Edition: How familiar were you with Star Trek before you worked on Star Trek: Discovery?  Hanelle Culpepper: I was a Star Trek fan when I first started with Discovery. I became a Star Trek fan from watching The Next Generation. That was the one that hit me at the right age, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t until I watched The Next Generation that I started watching the original series. So, I am very familiar.

loved my episode, so he asked me if I wanted to do an episode of Star Trek, and of course I said, “Absolutely.” I guess Kurtzman was already familiar with my work, and I must have been approved by him to do it. So, that was definitely a huge part of how I got my first Discovery episode.

“What [Picard] really needed was a purpose, and once Dahj shows up, he finds a purpose.”

Once you had the scripts for your Picard episodes, which previous Trek episodes and movies did you go back and screen in order help you

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catch the story threads and character nuances that you’d be building on? I re-watched all the movies involving The Next Generation. I watched the J. J. Abrams movies. And then as far as which episodes I watched, there were so many that I can’t actually tell you! I remember clearly watching The Next Generation pilot, and I probably watched another 15 to 17 episodes. I re-watched a lot of the Borg stuff, and especially episodes with Hugh [Jonathan Del Arco]. I watched all the French stuff. I re-watched “The Inner Light.” There’s a lot of Romulan stuff in Picard, so I watched the TNG episodes with Romulans and also Star Trek Nemesis. What’s your sense of how your three episodes reintroduce Picard and Starfleet, clarify what’s happened to Jean-Luc over the past 20 years, and introduce all the new situations and fresh characters? For me, the essence is that Picard feels trapped on his vineyard, and I used that for my visual language as well. I felt like he was there, but he wasn’t fully happy. He was definitely trapped, and was also trapped by the guilt he

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felt for Data sacrificing his life, and all the loss of the Romulans. What he really needed was a purpose, and once Dahj [Isa Briones] shows up, he finds a purpose, which is to figure out who she is, and find the sister. When he has that purpose, the show changes and he has drive. He goes and figures out how to make it happen. [But] the first thing he learns is that the world has moved on without him. It’s that bit of a rude awakening, where you can’t just step back into the power you once knew. He has to decide how to do it on his own, with his own power, and the show really takes off as he puts together his crew and makes it happen, because he now has this purpose that he cannot put to the side.

01 Hanelle Culpepper hits the red carpet at the Picard premiere. 02 Director on set: Culpepper consults with her crew. 03 Five-card stud, nothing wild... and the sky’s the limit.

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You were hired to direct the first two episodes, but two then became three. What was that process like? Before I was even done shooting, I think – or maybe it was while I was still editing – [the producers] made the decision that they wanted to shift some of the information that they were presenting later in the season to earlier in the season. There were some really cool sequences that we shot

that we originally had set for 101 and 102, but they ended up cut because of budget and time, and once [the producers] saw them, they felt they really needed to bring them back. So, they ended up coming back into it. Ultimately, it came to a really good place, and I think that’s always the creative process. Sometimes, you have to put in everything and then really distill it down. I feel like they work as the three episodes. But I was nervous when I was first told.

“The first thing [Picard] learns is that the world has moved on without him.” What impressed you most about Patrick Stewart and his commitment to Picard, and to this character he created more than 30 years ago? I really admired him, because it’s a lot to be number one on a call sheet. They tend to write these big paragraphs for him, and he’s just wonderful when he does it. He just says whatever he says,

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and it sounds so damn good [laughs]. But what I’m getting to is, it was a lot. We asked a lot of him. There’s a lot of dialogue, and even though we tried to limit how many hours a day [he worked], and limit it to four days a week, it was a lot. Yet, he was gung-ho, and really would just hang in there, even when he was tired. We could tell he was tired, and we were trying to finish our day, and he would go for it because he really loves this character. He was open to [direction], but also there were certain things he just knew in his gut that Picard would do or wouldn’t do, and was always very verbal and collaborative about picking up those things. Who among the newcomers and the returning Trek favorites did you get to work with? I did get to work with Brent [Spiner], and that was just so cool to meet him. I’m telling you, I truly was a Next Generation fan, and so the day we had him and Patrick work for the first time, and we had built the Ten Forward bar, that was just too cool. The scene with the painting, [in] the vineyard, and they’re both in their uniforms – we all turned back into

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04 Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) and Soji (Isa Briones) pay a visit to the exBorgs.

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gaga Star Trek fanboys and fangirls. Brent is very nice to work with, and takes direction. That was one of the great things. Nobody has a bad attitude. I don’t think we had any bad apples in our bunch. With the new people, it was great to actually have some characters who were starting from scratch. We spent a lot of time talking about these characters, doing rehearsals, getting their full history from Michael Chabon. He would write up little bios, like three-page bios for the characters. We’d take those and use th to gauge a lot of things as we were

“Everybody’s creativity and imagination came into play, in every way.” developing those characters, and the subtext in some of the scenes. It’s always fun when you get to be a part of creating a character. That doesn’t happen so much when you’re guest directing, you know? Everything is already established. So, that was good. And, all the young actors, they were excited to be a part of Trek as well, and eager to do their best and work with me. So, it was a lot of fun working with everybody. On social media, you have given shout-outs to some of the key players in your crew, who really are all a part of creating the template for the next seven episodes. What can you tell us about their contributions? Writers get all the glory, right? It’s certainly coming from their heads, but

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05 Picard aboard the show’s central ship, La Sirena.

I don’t think people realize the extent of all the contributions that come from the rest of the crew. Christine [Clark], our costume designer: you can say, “I want this look,” and then she goes and really finds what that look is, and makes it work. She had such great ideas. Mario [Moreira], who did our props: you can say you need a Romulan phaser, and “I want it to look cooler than what we’ve had before.” He’s the one who then goes off and makes one. Or different designers; they’re the ones who actually go and draw this stuff, and give us various versions, and we give notes, and they refine. Then, they go and make it real. Really, everybody’s creativity and imagination came into play, in every way. Our production designer, Todd [Cherniawsky], he was worked to death coming up with all the different sets. Again, we’ll give them a description of what we want, or what we want it to feel like, and they have to go and turn that into a picture and then a set. When anybody sees anything on the set or on the screen, they’re really seeing the baby of several brains coming together. It’s not one person. I feel the behind-the-scenes people don’t get enough recognition, so my posts were just my little way of putting their names out there. How hopeful are you that you’ll be back to direct Picard again in Season 2? I’m very hopeful that I’ll be back! I enjoyed the process, and I enjoy working with Patrick Stewart. Michael Chabon is a delight to work with as well. Alex… We have an amazing team. So, I kind of hope we all end up back together for Season 2.

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J E R I R YA N

JERI RYAN

SEVEN OF NINE Nineteen years after she last appeared onscreen in Star Trek: Voyager, Seven of Nine is back in Star Trek: Picard. But when the actress behind Seven, Jeri Ryan, encountered a little difficulty finding the former Borg’s voice after so long, she turned to her friend and fellow ex-Borg Jonathan Del Arco for help. 62

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s it possible that Jeri Ryan got rid of her Borg alcove just a bit too soon? “No,” Ryan replies, unleashing one of her raucous laughs. “And I say that because I gave the alcove to a very dear friend, who is really kind of the reason I’m doing this role again. I gave it to James.”

BACK TO THE BORG Time for some much-need context. Upon the end of her four-year stint as Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager, Ryan arranged to take one of the show’s Borg alcoves – sort of her home away from home during production – as a memento of her experience. She showcased it for ages in the entertainment room at the house in Los Angeles she shared with her husband and kids. However, when she moved to a new place not long ago, the actress turned possession of the Borg alcove over to her pal, James Duff. Now, stay with us, as it gets complicated. Duff is a veteran television writer and producer. He wrote the Star Trek: Enterprise episode

“When I heard the broad strokes of what they were planning for the character, it was incredibly appealing.” “Fortunate Son,” and is an executive producer on both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. He also wrote and produced The Closer and its spinoff, Major Crimes. Both shows co-starred Jonathan Del Arco, who is best known to Trek fans for his roles as Hugh Borg on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Fantome in the Voyager episode “The Void.” Del Arco is one of Ryan’s best friends, and he is married to her manager, Kyle Fritz. Duff, Del Arco, and Fritz all figured into Ryan’s seemingly unlikely path to reprising her role as Seven of Nine/Annika Hansen – not in a Voyager reunion project of any kind, but rather in the next chapter of Jean-Luc Picard’s story. Ryan smiles as she recounts the story late in 2019, backstage at the annual Star Trek

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“I thought about it a lot,” the actress acknowledges. “But when I heard the broad strokes of what they were planning for the character, it was incredibly appealing. Then I heard it was shooting in Los Angeles, so it became about 14,000 times more appealing. I’d be working with Patrick Stewart. Johnny was going to be in it. It was way too hard to pass up. “In terms of Seven, she has been through a lot in the [19] years since we last saw her in Voyager. She’s in a pretty dark place. She’s been working for the Rangers, basically helping to police the mess she feels Starfleet has left behind – because they did, in large part, leave a mess. She holds Picard partially responsible for this, because to her, he represents Starfleet still. “And I think she resents the fact that they abandoned all these people, and just left them to their own defenses,” Ryan adds. “So, it’s fallen into a mess, and she’s having to clean up everybody’s mess. You can tell from that scene between Seven and Picard in the trailer that there’s a sort of history between them, but that’s the first time they’re face-to-face and speaking. They only knew each other by reputation.”

FINDING SEVEN

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Las Vegas event, just a few minutes before stepping onto a stage to join Del Arco and Jonathan Frakes for a Picard panel. “Well, it started over a year ago now,” says the actress, who appears in five episodes of Picard’s first season. “We were sitting at the Hollywood Bowl and, after a few glasses of champagne with my very good friend James Duff, he said, ‘Here’s what I’m thinking…’ and he started to talk about Picard. Johnny [Del Arco] and Kyle were out with us, and I was like, ‘Sure, yeah. That sounds fun. You know, whatever,’ thinking it was never, ever going to happen. Then James kept bringing it up, every time I would see him. Cut to when we

did the Creative Arts Emmys, where they celebrated the 52nd anniversary of Star Trek. I met Alex Kurtzman at that event, and he brought it up again. I was like, ‘Yeah, OK.’ Then, I got the official call. And here we are.”

RETURN TO SEVEN Of course, there was slightly more to it than that. Ryan had to consider the pros and potential cons of playing Seven again. Would the Borg-related story threads on Picard provide more than a token use of Seven? Might Ryan need to slip back into Seven’s notorious catsuit, which she absolutely despised? And where did the producers plan to shoot Picard – California or Toronto?

01 Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard… 02 …and Ryan as Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager. 03 Fans of Seven finally get to find out what she has been up to since Voyager ended nearly 20 years ago.

As Ryan notes, it’s been 19 years since fans last saw Seven on Voyager. As detailed early on in Picard, Seven has spent those 19 years on Earth, where she’s endured numerous challenges, seen “some really bad stuff,” and is “pretty pissed.” All of that meant that Ryan was being called upon to portray a decidedly different iteration of Seven, and the actress admits she couldn’t immediately grasp how to bring the character back to life. “I knew she was going to be much more human,” Ryan explains. “When I saw the first script, and the way the language was written – it’s so casual, so kind of slangy and very much the polar opposite of Seven – I kind of freaked out, to the point that my husband commented on it. He said, ‘I’ve never seen you get nervous about a job before, and act like you’re confused about something.’ I just couldn’t wrap my head around her voice. I couldn’t find her voice because her voice was so specific for those four years on Voyager.

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“Johnny Del Arco, he saved me. He came over because he had his scenes first, before I did. We’re good friends, and have been for years. He’d gone through the same sort of struggles before he started shooting. It was helped, for both of us, by having the first wardrobe fittings, because, once you see the clothes, that really informs who the characters are and how they move, and things like that. “But the voice, Seven’s voice, was what I was really hitting on, and I had a very hard time with it,” she continues. “So, Johnny came over and he read the scenes with me for like an hour. I made us lunch, and he finally said something that just made it all click for me. And that’s what I needed. I just needed the one little thing as an actor to go, ‘OK, that

“Patrick is such a lovely man. I think this was only the second time we’d ever met.” makes sense. That’s a reason why she could and should realistically sound like this.’ He just had to give me that little key, and that was what flipped the switch.” And that was…? “I guess I can tell you,” Ryan says, leaning in conspiratorially. “He said, ‘What if, because the Borg are so universally hated in this world now – they always have been – but now they’re hunted for parts, they’re being mutilated and sold… and because she’s got these implants that can’t be removed, she’s always going to be identifiably Borg, from the Borg. What if, to survive, she’s had to make herself sound and look and act as human as she can? Just as a survival tactic?’ “That clicked for me. I don’t know why that never occurred to me, and I think it was just because I was so panicked and hung up on it. But I just couldn’t think about it that way. What Johnny said, that’s what I needed. I just needed that as an actor reasoning to make it make sense. And, as a result, [in certain scenes] she goes by Seven or Annika

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depending on who she is talking to. We see some characters from the more recent past who call her Annika.”

TRADING DIALOGUE

04 Jeri Ryan on the red carpet at the Picard premiere. 05 Seven is armed and dangerous in Picard.

During the Picard shoot, Ryan traded dialogue with Sir Patrick Stewart and most of the show’s regulars. However, believe it or not, she never worked with Del Arco. “Crazy, right?” the actress asks rhetorically. “I didn’t get any scenes with Johnny. Not a single scene! So, we’re very, very distraught about that. But he’s wonderful in the show. Patrick is such a lovely man. I think this was only the second time we’d ever met. We met at some event party years and years ago, and never since, I don’t think. So, it was

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really fun working with him. And the younger cast, they’re great. I have a lot of scenes with Evan Evagora [Elnor], who is very young. He is fantastic and is the sweetest guy, just the sweetest. They’re all lovely, and beautiful actors, and really fun to work with.” As this conversation concludes, Ryan cracked up when asked if the newcomers have any idea whatsoever what they’re getting themselves into. After all, there will be Comic-Cons and conventions ahead of them. There will be posters, cups, lunch boxes, video games, T-shirts, issues of Star Trek Magazine, and more emblazoned with their images. “They’re going to find out real soon!” she exclaims.

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BRENT SPINER

BRENT SPINER

DATA After seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and four movies – not to mention the occasional episode of Star Trek: Enterprise – Brent Spiner makes his return to the Star Trek universe in Star Trek: Picard. But it wasn’t just the prospect of playing Data again that brought the actor back into the fold, as he explains.

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f one were to employ Vulcan logic to the return of Brent Spiner as Data in Star Trek: Picard, it should really surprise no one. The series centers on Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) approximately 20 years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis, in which Data gave up his life to save his beloved captain, though some of Data’s memories lived on in the B-4 prototype android. Picard’s guilt about his friend’s demise and sacrifice – along with the dissolution of the Romulan Empire – factored into Picard’s decision to leave Starfleet and settle into a far quieter life. But when Picard returns to action, it sets the stage for Data – or one of his iterations – to do so as well. And that means Spiner is back, too, reprising a role he never imagined playing again because, as he’d always insisted, he ages and Data doesn’t. Star Trek: Picard: The Official Collector’s Magazine sat down with Spiner during the Star Trek Las Vegas event, and he filled us in on how Picard came about, what it was like to pop in Data’s contact lenses, and more.

DATA’S DEMISE Spiner, before discussing Picard, first addresses the real-world and Data threads that Nemesis left dangling. He received a “story by” credit on Nemesis

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alongside producer Rick Berman and John Logan, the latter of whom penned the screenplay. “I thought we were going to do one more after that, actually,” Spiner explains. “But not necessarily. Patrick, when we shot the last shot of Nemesis – or it was the last shot that I did, before, in his ready room – was watching the monitor and he came

“Primarily, this is not a Next Generation series. This is a Picard show, and it’s what happened to him 20 years later.” back and went [snaps fingers], ‘We’re coming back.’ We had an idea for one more, John Logan and I. But, for all practical purposes, we were told, ‘[Nemesis] is going to be the last one.’ “So, we thought we would do something emotional for the last one, let people go out with a big, emotional [Data] moment. And they weren’t crazy about that idea,” Spiner says, laughing. “I was fine with it, for a couple of reasons. A, I wasn’t sure we were coming back and I thought it

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was a fitting ending to this character to have experienced sacrifice for his friends and so on; and B, I felt I was getting too old to do the part.”

CAST REUNION Now it’s nearly 20 years later and, against all odds, Spiner is back as Ol’ Yellow Eyes in Picard. He recalls that Stewart invited the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast to dinner and proceeded to tell them about Picard, without revealing too much, since there wasn’t all that much in that moment to reveal. “But, primarily, this is not a Next Generation series,” Spiner says. “This is a Picard show, and it’s what happened to him 20 years later. So, a couple of weeks later I got a call. My managers had gotten a call from CBS saying, ‘Hypothetically, will he consider coming on the show as Data?’ I said, ‘Well, hypothetically, I would,’ because that’s all it was, hypothetical. Then I got a call asking if I would meet with Alex [Kurtzman] and Akiva [Goldsman]. Michael Chabon wasn’t there at the time. Heather [Kadin, producer] was there. Anyway, would I consider meeting with them? So, I met with them, and they said, ‘Here’s what we want to do. And we’d like you to play Data. But not very much. Just a couple of times.’ I said, ‘How would I

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do that?’ They said, ‘Well, CGI. We’ll do a whole CGI thing. You’ll look great.’ I said, ‘Well, OK, I’ll consider that.’ So there’s a Data through-line that goes with Picard, and Data is a thread that goes through the season.”

FIRST CONTACTS

01 Brent Spiner as Data – complete with skin graft courtesy of the Borg Queen – in Star Trek: First Contact (1996). 02 Spiner signs for the fans at the Picard premiere. 03 With Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan at the premiere.

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What was it like to step back into the uniform? To be yellow again? To see through those eyes? And, speaking of those iconic peepers, are they courtesy of contact lenses or CG? Spiner nods his head and chuckles ruefully. “Oh, they’re contacts,” he reveals. “I don’t like them. I never liked them. And I still don’t like them. But I only had to do it a couple of times. “The last time [Picard] saw me was the way I looked in Nemesis, and when I put on the make-up, I look

“There’s a Data throughline that goes with Picard. Data is a thread that goes through the season.” very much like I looked in Nemesis. I mean, with a little touch here and there of CGI, for the most part, they didn’t do anything. I think for the last one, they’ll do even less, because, well, I can’t tell you why.” Spiner describes the experience of reentering the Star Trek orbit and trading lines again with Stewart as “great,” as well as “Strange in a sense. Bizarre, in a sense. Odd.” He

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recounts sitting across from his old friend and co-star while shooting their first scene for Picard. “He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him, and he’s going, ‘Isn’t this weird?’” Spiner marvels. “I’m going, ‘Yeah, it really is. But here we are.’ I’d worked with Patrick on his show, Blunt Talk. I love working with Patrick. That’s one of the big reasons to come back, to spend some time with him.” The internet exploded when fans got their first look at Spiner in the Picard trailer when it dropped during 2019’s San Diego Comic-Con. People dissected Spiner’s appearance, trying to determine whether he was Data, B-4, Dr. Soong, Lore, Arik Soong, and so on. Spiner found himself bemused by the reaction. “Well, if you were on my Twitter page, all day, every day,

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people were like, ‘Here’s what you’re doing, I bet,’” he says. “And I was like, ‘Why don’t you just wait and watch the show?’ Why do you have to know now? People want to spoil it. Just watch it!”

STAR TREK BEYOND Fans can now do precisely that, with Picard streaming worldwide. Spiner, meantime, is on to his next job, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, a Penny Dreadful spin-off created by his friend, John Logan. “It’s fantastic,” Spiner enthuses of the horror-fantasy series that also features Star Trek: Discovery’s Spock, Ethan Peck. “I play the Chief of Police of Boyle Heights, LA, in 1938. It’s a great story. I’ve read the first four

scripts, and it’s sensational. The writers I’m getting to work with right now, it’s just nuts. John on Penny Dreadful, and Alex, Akiva, and Michael on Picard. Michael is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and his wife, Ayelet Waldman, is writing for Picard, too. They’re all just so good. That’s the thrill of still being an actor after all this time, who I get to work with.” It’s at this point that Spiner turns around and glances over at his table in the Star Trek Las Vegas vendor’s room. The line has grown exponentially since he sat down to chat, and in a moment, he’ll be fist bumping fans and signing autographs. So, that leaves time for just a couple of more questions. Fans clearly still love the convention experience, but

does it ever get old for Spiner, or does it remain enjoyable for him? “It’s fun,” he replies. “They all want to know about [Picard], and I have to tap dance. Alex [Kurtzman] gave me permission before San Diego ComicCon to tell people, ‘You know, Data is dead. Don’t get the idea that he is a regular on this show, because he’s not.’ But there are some really cool surprises along the way and Data, as I told you, is a through-line on this show.” Many fans assumed that Picard would be a one-off, a limited series, but Patrick Stewart has stated that he’s eager to carry on if this is successful and the story warrants another chapter. Spiner is “open to doing more… So, we’ll see what happens.”

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J O N AT H A N D E L A R C O

J O N AT H A N D E L A R C O

HUGH Over 25 years since he last played ex-Borg Hugh in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jonathan Del Arco reports that it took him a while to find the character again for Star Trek: Picard. But the hardest thing for the actor was keeping his role in the new show a secret in the first place…

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onathan Del Arco is a really good actor – and masterful at keeping a secret, though he’d deny that second point. When he spoke face to face with Star Trek Magazine in October 2018 at Destination Star Trek Birmingham, he never for a nanosecond let on that he’d committed to reprise his role as Hugh Borg, a.k.a Third of Five, in Star Trek: Picard. Yet here he is, in late 2019, at Star Trek Las Vegas, in a quiet room, just steps from the main stage. In a few minutes, he will join Jeri Ryan and Jonathan Frakes for a panel in which they will discuss their participation in Picard, all to the wild cheers of 6,000 appreciative fans. As a warmup, Del Arco first sits down to talk with Star Trek: Picard – The Official Collector’s Edition.

spanning more than 100 episodes, playing Dr. Fernando Morales on the series The Closer and its spin-off, Major Crimes. Further, he wrote and directed a short film, Tea with Alice, which can be found on YouTube. Away from the set, he’s an ardent activist fighting for gay rights and environmental and political causes. Oh, and one of his best friends in the galaxy is none other than… Jeri

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Ryan, whose manager is his husband. Ryan used to maintain a Borg alcove at her house in Los Angeles, and, yes, they hung out in it. “Many times,” Del Arco acknowledges, smiling broadly and laughing as he shares the anecdote. “We’ve had cocktails in her Borg alcove, as a matter of fact. I think I have a photo… Well, I don’t think we have cocktails in our hand [in that particular picture], but we have hung out in her alcove and we have had drinks in it. It’s very small, you know. But it was in her playroom, so we did do photo ops.”

Before we get into the conversation, some fast background details and updates. Del Arco played Hugh – a name bestowed upon him by Geordi La Forge – in the Star Trek: The Next Generation installments, “I, Borg” and “Descent, Part II.” He also portrayed the mute humanoid character Fantome in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The Void,” and lent his voice to the video games Star Trek: Armada II and Star Trek: Bridge Commander. Beyond the realm of Star Trek, Del Arco memorably spent 13 years,

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“[Hugh] has been asked to come manage a really dicey situation with the Romulans and a Borg cube.”

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AN UNUSUAL PATH Del Arco’s path to Picard didn’t follow the usual pattern of an agent or manager ringing him up. Nor did it involve an audition – which made perfect sense, since he’d be revisiting a role he originated. Instead, the Picard producers and writers reached out to him, and one of them was James Duff, with whom Del Arco collaborated for a decade-plus on The Closer and Major Crimes. “It was about a year ago that James approached me,” the actor says, picking up the story. “He had just started writing the show with Alex [Kurtzman] and Michael [Chabon] and all of the fellows and ladies. He said, ‘Would you play Hugh again?’ I said, ‘Of course. It would be really interesting to delve back into something that I did that long ago.’ I think I said, ‘I wouldn’t have to wear the make-up and costume again, would I?’” Del Arco laughs. “And he said, ‘Oh, I think it’d be different.’ Then, the actual call came in February. So, it had been a long haul of waiting for it, and thinking, ‘Is it going to happen? Is it not going to happen?’” Everything eventually fell into place. Contracts were signed; the writers tapped away at their computers; time passed. Del Arco knew he’d soon be on a set shooting Picard, but he could utter nothing about it to anyone, including to Star Trek Magazine

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during that aforementioned interview. Staying silent, apparently, tested Del Arco’s mettle. “I suck at keeping secrets,” he explains. “Let me tell you, it was brutal. Also, I was doing a bunch of other things. I was acting, I was directing a short, I was writing a short and working on some other things. Auditioning, sure. My friends were like, ‘You’ll get a job eventually,’ and ‘Hang in there!’ And I was thinking, ‘You guys have no idea. I’ve got a really good job coming up!’ So, it was particularly hard when people felt sorry for me.”

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CITIZEN OF THE FEDERATION So, how does Hugh figure in Picard? “The last time we saw him was in ‘Descent,’ and he had become essentially the leader of a faction of disaffected Borg,” Del Arco replies. “He has then gone on to become a member of the Federation and a citizen. Now, he has been asked to come manage a really dicey situation with the Romulans and a Borg cube. He is in the middle of a very large plot piece that propels the series. So, I would say he’s a much more important character than he was before, even though [before] I changed an entire alien race! “He’s actually much more important now to the structure of this show… There are some references to [“I, Borg” and “Descent, Part II”]. There are references to him becoming an individual and what that has meant for him, and the impression that Picard, and the crew of the Enterprise, has had on him, on the building of him as a human being.” To Del Arco’s surprise, the character didn’t come back to him as quickly and easily as he perhaps anticipated. The actor describes Hugh as “really a tricky character to find” again because, when he first played him, Del Arco was in his 20s and had based Hugh on a person he loved, who suffered from dementia and later died. “So, I was playing [Hugh as] someone else, in kind of a weird way,” Del Arco reasons, “and now, as a fully developed human, he was much more like me, and had lived through many things like me. But I didn’t want to give up some of the

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“Working with Patrick has been worth the whole job for me.” things that the fans would recognize about him as a character and that I had loved about him as a character, like that quiet, introspective quality that he had. “It took me a while to find that,” Del Arco continues. “The wardrobe was very different, whereas the wardrobe in [The Next Generation] dictated my movement a lot. So, I tried to find a little bit of that again. It really wasn’t until I was on set that I was like, ‘Oh, he’s here,’ and I felt him kind of come in, you know? It was nice.”

A CLASS REUNION Decades had passed since Del Arco partnered in scenes with either Patrick Stewart or Jeri Ryan. He shot his last “Descent, Part II” moment with Stewart in the summer of 1993 and his final “The Void” interaction with Ryan in December 2000. His reunions with Stewart and Ryan, he declares, went swimmingly.

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01 Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh. 02 Hugh encounters Picard on the derelict Borg cube. 03 Costume design by Christine Bieselin Clark, costume concept art by Michael Uwandi. 04 Hugh as he appears in his Next Generation debut, “I, Borg.”

“Jeri and I have not had enough to do together,” Del Arco says. “Working with Patrick has been worth the whole job for me. Honestly, the time I’ve spent working with him and getting to know him better, and becoming his friend, has been the best part of this gig. Jeri’s one of my best friends, so even seeing her on set and being in this part of the world with her now – until the day we die – is awesome because that’s what Star Trek is really about, is the conventions. You can have been on the show for six months, but you can live it for 30 years. I worked with Isa Briones, too, but most of my scenes were Patrick.” De Arco mentioned earlier the question he posed to the Picard producers about the possibility of having to slip into full Borg make-up and costume in order to become Hugh again. He smiles broadly when addressing what ultimately occurred. “I still had to go do a life mask to create the new make-up, and I am claustrophobic. But I was very glad and relieved that I didn’t have to wear all that. It’s fully redesigned.”

THE NEXT PHASE After all these years and following so much secrecy, Del Arco is stoked for fans all over the world to see Picard and to watch Hugh back in action, in this next phase of the character’s life. “Oh, my God, I can’t even tell you how excited I am,” he says. “It took me a year to share the news, which was hard enough. And now I can’t tell them any freaking thing about it! I’m like, ‘God, I’m so sorry, but I can’t tell you! Wait till you see it!’ I’m beyond excited because I get to introduce some epic s**t in it. I can’t wait for the fans to see that, and to see their response to it. It’s going to be a lot of intensity.” A moment ago, Del Arco joked that Star Trek is about the conventions. Among the additional benefits of returning to Trek as an actor: fresh stories to tell fans and new photos to autograph. “I did this half for working with Patrick and half for new photos!” he says, laughing. “Just signing a 30-yearold picture of yourself in whiteface doesn’t add up.”

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HARRY TREADAWAY

NAREK The Romulan Narek has a very particular purpose in Star Trek: Picard, one that cuts to the heart of the show’s synthetic life form narrative. As such, the Tal Shiar agent makes it his mission to get as close as he can to Soji, as the actor behind Narek, Harry Treadaway, explains.

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t’s funny how things can change, and so swiftly, too. Harry Treadaway, heading into Star Trek: Picard, admittedly didn’t know much about Star Trek. “Not really at all,” Treadaway explains. “I remember seeing it, being aware of it. It was one of those shows that was just part of growing up, I guess, on TV. It was always on after school. So, you’d see it if even if you weren’t meaning to. But I also remember the diverse casts, and I remember the episodic nature of the shows, just different stories every week, but with through-lines to previous storylines. I didn’t watch it [regularly] as a kid, but I remember it being part of the TV culture.” Now, the 35-year-old British actor is helping bring Jean-Luc Picard back to that TV culture. Treadaway – who counts among his film and television credits City of Ember, Penny Dreadful, Mr. Mercedes, and The Crown – co-stars as Narek, a Romulan agent on a mission that involves the story’s main female protagonist, Soji (Isa Briones), and also his sister, Narissa (Peyton List).

THE ROMULAN IMPERATIVE Narek and Narissa work for the Romulan Star Empire’s rough equivalent of the British Secret Service,

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the Tal Shiar. That organization was first introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Face of the Enemy,” and later factored into episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as the four-installment Star Trek: Countdown comic book series and, most recently, Star Trek Online. “Narek has been designated with the task of tracking down synthetic life forms, and trying to determine if there are any, and if he can find them,”

“Narek has been designated with the task of tracking down synthetic life forms.” Treadaway reveals. “The Romulans have this fear – the knowledge of an age-old story within their culture – that synthetic life forms will eventually destroy all organic life in the universe. So, he has this incredibly important task to find [them]. “At the very beginning, he locks onto one [Soji], which is an amazing thing because there aren’t any others around that they can find at the moment. Rather than just try and destroy her straight away, he tries to

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gain as much information as he can about her, and where she came from, which isn’t instantly obvious. That’s because she doesn’t really know, to begin with. And so, he basically starts to lead a double life. He enters into a relationship with her, and pretends to be one thing with her, when, really, he’s something else. So, you see both sides of him.”

SUBTERFUGE AND SOJI It appears, at least on the surface, that Narek is using Soji in order to draw out of her what he and the Romulans require. That may very well be the case, but he’s doing so in order to save lives – possibly countless lives. However, one can’t help but wonder how Narek actually

“[Narek] enters into a relationship with [Soji], and pretends to be one thing with her, when, really, he’s something else.” feels about Soji and how he’s treating her, and if he’s falling for her to the same degree she seems to be falling for him. If there’s not some genuine passion on Narek’s part, then he’s a master at faking it. “He’s using classic subterfuge techniques,” Treadaway notes. “He’s using trust, gaining her trust. He’s using his charm. Narek uses all of his facets to gain trust from this individual, so that he can try and extract from her not just where she came from, but where the rest of the synthetic life forms are. To do that, he’s using his training, using manipulation, and using emotion, almost human emotion – because she is integrated with something incredibly close to human emotion. Her brain is very, very human. So, he’s using that, and attraction, and lots of different techniques with which to pull her in and make her trust him, and therefore help him gain information.” But, does he start to fall for her?

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“I…” Treadaway starts to reply, before stopping. “I can’t possibly comment on that.”

SIBLING RIVALRY Narek’s other major relationship on Picard is not with Jean-Luc, nor even with Elnor (Evan Evagora), the show’s other main Romulan character. Rather, it’s with his sister, Narissa. “That’s an interesting relationship,” Treadaway explains. “She’s superior to him in their sort of Romulan Secret Service. This is something that Michael Chabon spoke to me about and wrote to me about before shooting, when he was filling in Narek’s backstory for me. Narissa was very much the

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high achiever out of the two, from a young age, and she’s someone who was always brilliant at what she did. “I think that psychology from childhood is still in their relationship now. She’s superior to him, and his being the younger brother, you don’t want your sibling to be your boss, really. So, there’s a power struggle that goes on with the two of them. That, really, is the main thrust of their relationship, that power struggle about which path to go down. They have different views on what is the right way to go, the right things to do. Narissa is more gung-ho, wanting to end things quickly, and I really see the need in prolonging the informationextraction stage, shall we say.”

01 Harry Treadaway as Narek. 02 Aboard the Borg cube, Narek meets Soji for the first time. 03 Soji and Narek grow increasingly close – or so Soji believes.

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SET REPORT As one might expect from Treadaway’s comments, he spent most of his time on set with Isa Briones, whom he adored. That’s not to say he didn’t make the acquaintances of Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes, the latter of whom directed two episodes of Picard. “Patrick, I didn’t really work with, but I absolutely loved every day that we hung out on set, the conversations we had, stories from the past,” Treadaway says. “That was all brilliant. Isa was amazing. She’s young, but she’s come from musical theater, so she’s very grounded, very hardworking, hugely talented, and just a pleasure to work with. She’s going to be a huge star. This is going to be the start of something amazing for her. That felt like an exciting thing itself. It’s always fun to work with people that haven’t done much stuff before. Her work ethic, and the way she handled it all, was amazing. She’s going to be brilliant in the show. “And Jonathan Frakes was just a great director to work with,” the actor continues. “He obviously understood the subject matter more than anyone, really, I guess. He was on The Next Generation for seven years, and that was when they did 24 episodes a year. He’d directed other Star Trek, too, and a couple of the movies. So, he knew the world of it and, therefore, had a relaxation and a freedom, and a rock and roll spirit about making the show day-to-day. Jonathan wasn’t brought down in ways you could be if you didn’t understand Star Trek. He just was really great to work with, a lot of fun.” 03

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CONVENTION VET Even before Picard premiered in January, Treadaway was actively participating in the next stage of his Star Trek association. In addition to granting interviews, he joined his co-stars for promotional appearances at San Diego Comic-Con and New York ComicCon, and will surely jump on the Trek convention bandwagon in the future. And though he’s new to Trek, Treadaway is no stranger to Comic-Cons, as he’s joined panels in the past devoted to Penny Dreadful and Mr. Mercedes. “It was very quick when we went to San Diego because we were still filming Picard,” Treadaway notes. “That was crazy. It’s always really great to go to those events and meet the people that watch a show or movie you’re in – or are going to hopefully

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“[Narissa is] superior to him, and his being the younger brother, you don’t want your sibling to be your boss.” watch that show or movie. In film and TV, you really don’t do that much. In theater, you get to meet the audience afterwards, even if it’s just at the stage door every night. So, things like ComicCon, I always really love it. I just have so much gratitude to anyone that turns up and supports what we’re doing, because we all believe in the story. “With Picard, our show is born of something which started many, many years ago, so, this is a whole other level,” he continues. “I don’t know of any TV shows that have been going

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04 Narek keeps a close eye on Soji. 05 Young love – but is it true love?

as long as Star Trek, so the fanbase is huge because of their love for it. And the meaning that is bestowed into it is a testament to the original creators, since it’s still so strong, and the fans are still so passionate and heartfelt for it. It was really exciting to be at San Diego Comic-Con when we showed the [Picard] trailer, and just humbling to be a part of something which has so many fans. And then New York took everything another step up again because a bit more time had passed, and another trailer or two had come out. The fans at Madison Square Garden were just screaming their heads off and standing up when we showed them the newest trailer. “So,” Treadaway concludes, “I don’t know what else you could possibly hope for.”

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EVAN EVAGORA

EVAN EVAGORA

ELNOR Though he had just a couple of screen credits to his name prior to Star Trek: Picard, Evan Evagora could count on the thorough sci-fi education afforded him by his mother in preparing for his role as Picard’s Romulan bodyguard Elnor. But nothing could prepare the young actor for the thrill of working with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Jeri Ryan.

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ake a bow, Marie Evagora. Somewhere out in Melbourne, Australia, Mrs Evagora instilled in her seven kids an appreciation of Star Trek. That appreciation came in very handy for her youngest child, Evan, first when he auditioned for Star Trek: Picard, and then later on as he played the long-haired, swordwielding Romulan, Elnor, on the newest Trek show in the galaxy. “I’d watched a few episodes of the original series, and the original series movies – The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and everything,” Evagora recalls. “Those were my mum’s favorites when I was growing up. We used to watch Next Generation reruns in the kitchen during dinner. My mum pretty much made us grow up on all things sci-fi. She was a big fan. Whenever my mum was watching something, us kids would sit down around the TV and lounger and watch whatever was on. Most of the time it was Star Trek or Star Wars, and occasionally Stargate. And also a little bit of Firefly.”

SWIFT ASCENT Evagora’s ascent to the brink of stardom has been blindingly swift. He started out as a professional

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model, decided he wanted to act, and appeared as an extra in one episode of the Australian television show Secret City before winning a main role in the recent horror movie version of Fantasy Island. During a break in the Fantasy Island shoot, he auditioned for several television pilots. The actor picks up the story from there.

“We used to watch Next Generation reruns in the kitchen during dinner. My mum pretty much made us grow up on all things sci-fi.” “I remember sitting there just thinking, ‘Oh, I need one more audition,’ and I got a phone call saying, ‘Can you come into the Australian casting director’s offices and audition for this new Patrick Stewart Star Trek show?’ I said, ‘Yeah, no problem,’ and I went in and auditioned in front of the casting director. It was my last audition from that bunch that I had done, and I flew to Fiji the next day.

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“Then, when I landed in Fiji, I got told I was being considered for the role, that it was down to me and a few other people,” he continues. “And then, unfortunately, I fell sick. I had a phone call with the producers, I think, a couple days later, and they gave me some notes to read to re-film the scenes that I’d done. So, I was doing that with a bedsheet and some noise blocker in a hotel room. After I’d filmed that and sent it off to the producers, I got told, I think it was two days after, ‘Yeah, you got the role. We’re going to started expediting your visa and organizing all the paperwork, and then we’ll fly you out once it’s all approved.’” Evagora laughs loudly when asked who was more thrilled about him landing the Star Trek job, him or his mother. “Oh, my mum is over the moon,” he enthuses. “I’m over the moon, too, but my mum is always calling me up and asking me questions. If I’m stuck on something, or if I don’t know something – like a character’s origin or a bit more about them – she’ll give me the rundown. That has been pretty good, being able to have your own source for all things Star Trek.” Will she be his guest at the Picard premiere? “Yeah,” he replies, then

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pauses for a moment. “My mum doesn’t really like cameras. She gets embarrassed a lot. So, hopefully she’ll come.”

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THE BODYGUARD

01 Evan Evagora as Elnor. 02 Elnor on his adoptive homeworld of Vashti. 02 Costume design by Christine Bieselin Clark, concept art by Greg Hopwood. 04 Picard enlists Elnor’s aid in his mission to find Soji.

In Star Trek: Picard, Elnor serves as Jean-Luc Picard’s muscle – his bodyguard – and is part of the crew that the former admiral has assembled aboard La Sirena. Picard and Elnor first met back when the Romulan was about seven years old. An orphan during the relocation, before the synth attack on Mars, he was meant to be temporarily placed with the Qowat Milet, a sect of nuns on the planet Vashti. Temporarily extended to long-term, and Elnor grew up as the only male in a female order of warrior assassins who also only ever speak the truth. “The Qowat Milet also believe in helping people,” Evagora explains. “Their motto, though, is, ‘Nobody ever helped someone when it’s a lost cause.’ So, when they’ve exercised all other hope, or when it looks like their mission or whatever will fail, that’s when people normally seek out the help of the Qowat Milet. “When Picard is searching for people to help him on his mission, he flies back to Vashti and finds that Elnor is still there, and feels a responsibility to take him with him. He gives Elnor an offer and Elnor, obviously, has never really seen anything but Vashti. He doesn’t really understand the outside world.

So, he goes with him, eager to learn, and to help Picard. He struggles to fit in initially with everyone on the La Sirena, but I think his charm and ignorance is what makes him so lovable. It’s what makes the crew of the La Sirena eventually accept him as one of their own.”

TRUTH AND LIES It won’t be lost on longtime Trek fans that the whole truth-telling element might pay off brilliantly. After all, Leonard Nimoy’s iconic Vulcan, Spock, got the job done and elicited major laughs when he “exaggerated” in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and “implied” in Star Trek (2009). “Well, Elnor does learn how to lie,” Evagora comments. “He just can’t lie well. But his truths, I guess, his credo, his motto, his beliefs, that all tends to get other people in trouble as opposed to him.” Evagora surely isn’t lying when he goes on to discuss how much “fun” he had getting to know Patrick Stewart and the Picard regulars, as well as the Star Trek legacy actors involved in the show. “We are like a little family,” he notes. “We are a motley crew. We do a lot of things together. And being able to work opposite Patrick… people would dream about doing this or pay for something like that. It’s like going to your favorite class every day, like being back in high school with your favorite teacher. I guess that’s pretty much how it feels.

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“And the legacy actors… Jonathan Frakes was my first director, so I’ll always have a soft spot for him,” Evagora continues. “I’d probably also say he was my favorite director to work with. He gave me some good advice that really helped me. Brent [Spiner], I was with him later in the season. I didn’t have too many scenes with him. My favorite scenes with the legacy cast would have been with Jeri Ryan and Patrick, by far. I absolutely loved mine and Jeri’s dynamic while we were shooting. I can’t wait for everyone to see it.”

“My favorite scenes with the legacy cast would have been with Jeri Ryan and Patrick, by far. I absolutely loved mine and Jeri’s dynamic while we were shooting.”

ROMULAN MAKEOVER As one might expect, heading into Picard, Evagora was concerned about the time involved in playing a make-up-heavy character like Elnor. Heightening that concern, his project right before Picard, the aforementioned Fantasy Island, required him to endure three to four hours of heavy prosthetics application before he even stepped in front of the camera to shoot a scene.

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05 Elnor with Dr. Jurati and Picard aboard La Sirena.

“When I got Elnor and they told me that I’d be doing prosthetics, I was thinking, ‘Wow, how am I going to spend three to four hours in a chair every day? And then two to three hours getting the make-up off me?’” he recalls. “But I was kind of lucky with the Romulan prosthetics because it’s only an hour and a half. I’m working with some really good, experienced people. [Make-up designer and prosthetic dept head] James MacKinnon and [make-up artist] Richard Redlefsen were the ones who worked on my prosthetics, and applied it. And the experience itself is quite comfortable and enjoyable. Being able

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to sit in the chair and watch Elnor come to life every day was pretty fun.” Evagora experienced a different kind of fun when he joined his costars for promotional appearances at San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con, and elsewhere this past summer and fall. He soaked it all in as thousands of fans cheered for him and the rest of the cast, and as the crowds went bonkers while watching the trailers for Picard. “I’m glad I had a water bottle with me, because my throat kept drying up, like every 30 seconds,” Evagora says. “It was surreal. Initially, it’s just nerves and adrenaline. Once you sit in the chair and really take it in, you think, ‘Who else gets to experience something like that?’ You’re in a room full of people who just love and adore what you do, and they love everything Star Trek. It’s unbelievable.” Not surprisingly, Evagora hopes this is just the start of his trek with Picard. “Oh, I’d be back on Season 2,” the actor enthuses. “To see where Elnor goes, and what journey we all go on together, I’d love it more than anything.”

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RIKER It may be 15 years since he last played Will Riker, but Jonathan Frakes has been involved in Star Trek ever since it returned to the small screen in 2017, directing episodes of Star Trek: Discovery. Now, with Star Trek: Picard, he’s both directing and acting, helming two episodes of the first season and reprising the role that first brought him fame. STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

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J 01 Jean-Luc Picard and William T. Riker: reunited. 02 Jonathan Frakes on stage with Picard co-star Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) at Star Trek Las Vegas 2019. 03 Frakes as Riker on the bridge of the Enterprise-D with Patrick Stewart (Picard), Michael Dorn (Worf), and Marina Sirtis (Troi), in the first Next Generation film, Star Trek Generations (1994).

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onathan Frakes was there. He heard it from the man himself. And yet he still didn’t quite believe that he’d be involved in any way, shape, or form. Back in 2018, at the annual Star Trek Las Vegas gathering, Sir Patrick Stewart shocked the 6,000-plus fans in the room – and the world at large – by announcing that he’d be reprising his role as Jean-Luc Picard for a new show that we now know to be Star Trek: Picard. Stewart even informed Frakes – his longtime friend, Number One to his Picard, and his frequent director – that he wanted him to direct the show; and though fans everywhere clamored for Stewart’s Star Trek: The Next Generation co-stars to join him on Picard, Frakes didn’t place bets on that happening, either. And now, here we are: Frakes directed Episodes 3 and 4 of Picard and reunited with Stewart and Marina Sirtis (who once again plays Deanna Troi, alias Mrs Riker) to portray William Riker in an episode.

PLAYING A PART “He told me that night, ‘You’re going to be a part of it,’” Frakes recalls.

“Picard brings his complications to us and we, by example, teach him our version of parenting and decision-making.” “I said, ‘That sounds great. I hope that’s true.’ He said. ‘Oh, no, no, no, Johnny, I’m a producer on the show.’ So, I initially got my hopes up [that] I’d get to direct the pilot, which didn’t happen. It turns out that was a blessing, because they worked the kinks out of the pilot and I got two fabulous scripts without the growing pains of the show finding its feet. But, I had been on Discovery and had a relationship with Secret Hideout, Alex Kurtzman’s company, and I also had Patrick’s support and endorsement. So, the door opened and I walked in. “What was really surprising was when, early in the shooting of Picard, they changed showrunners and the arc of the season changed, and it included now, which it did not at the beginning of the season, a story that involved Troi and Riker. “We were not [originally] even a glimmer in anyone’s eye,” Frakes continues. “It was going to be just

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Data [Brent Spiner], and the big surprise, which was that Seven, Jeri Ryan, was going to be on the show. And, also, Jonathan Del Arco [as Hugh Borg]. Data was kind of a no-brainer because of the end of Star Trek Nemesis, Picard’s feeling about Data, and the character’s popularity. So, that wish by the fans was fulfilled. I think that [the fans] were thrilled when it was made official at Comic-Con, in San Diego, but probably not surprised. But, Jeri in the trailer as Seven? That was a huge surprise. I think that [Executive Producer and showrunner] Michael Chabon really knows the canon and the legacy, and Alex Kurtzman understands the power of the fanbase… I would not at all be surprised if they pepper in someone else from Next Gen next season.”

FRIENDS REUNITED Will Riker and Deanna Troi appear in Episode 8 of Picard. A concerned and

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conflicted Picard turns to them for advice while on Nepenthe to visit Soji. “We’re living on a planet on which all things regenerate, because we had a son [Thad], who was very sick, [but Riker and Troi] got him there too late, and he died,” Frakes explains. “But we stayed on this planet with our wonderful, brilliant daughter [Kestra, played by Lulu Wilson]. Picard brings his complications to us and we, by example, teach him our version of parenting and decision-making. “There’s some really good stuff. Marina is on fire. She lays into him about something personal. And Riker’s got some great stuff with him, where Picard is saying, ‘Let me just tell you what I’m seeing. How am I doing? Is this right?’ There are a couple of beautiful character scenes that people who know about the way Picard, Riker, and Troi were on Next Gen are going to enjoy. We enjoyed it. And I think the fans are going to love seeing these guys together again, especially because we’re not in spacesuits.” Frakes last played Riker in 2005, in the controversial Star Trek: Enterprise series finale, “These Are the Voyages…” Though he still frequently lends his voice to animated

series – among them Guardians of the Galaxy and Future-Worm! – he’s mostly confined his live-action acting efforts to cameo appearances, with the notable exception of his role as the pedophile father of a serial killer in a chilling episode of Criminal Minds. Rather, Frakes – who, of course, directed numerous episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as the films Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection – has focused his energies on directing, calling the shots on everything from The Librarians, Leverage, Castle, and Burn Notice to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Falling Skies, N.C.I.S. Los Angeles, and The Orville, as well as Star Trek: Discovery. As a result, he admits that his internal ratio of comfortable to terrified was pretty skewed when it came to once again stepping into Riker’s boots.

RIKER’S RETURN “I keep reading – and I must have said this out loud, because it’s all over the interwebs – about my anxiety over playing Riker [on Picard],” Frakes says with an easy laugh. “It was based on the fact that I had just done two big

episodes directing Patrick. Frankly, he’s better than he’s ever been. He said something that I loved. I said, ‘You’re really available and interesting.’ He said, ‘I changed something.’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ He said ‘Well, when I was doing the Pinter plays with Sir Ian [McKellen], instead of having to be perfect – which all my career, I felt like I had to be perfect – I stood in the wings before my entrance and I said, “F*** it. It doesn’t matter,” and I went on.’ And he said, ‘I said it out loud to myself.’ “His technique has changed, essentially, because he was completely available to vulnerability. Picard is much more emotional – and Patrick is, I guess. He’s lost weight for the role. He’s trying to play older than he is and he has to work at that because, at 79, he [still] looks like he did when he when was on the show. He is the only member of the cast who hasn’t changed, and it’s astounding.” Did Frakes take his cues from that? “No, no!” he replies. “I had that knowledge of having just worked with him, and seeing his acting muscle in the condition it’s in. And I knew that we’d arranged our schedule because Marina had been given her

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first opportunity to star in a show in the West End in London. Just from knowing Marina, but also because she was coming to set straight from her play in London, I knew that her acting muscle, if you will, was going to be fully pumped and running on all cylinders, and well oiled. Being aware of all that and, secondly, being vain and wanting to hold my own with two of my favorite people, I spent every morning, before I got out of bed, working on the script, so that there would be no question that I wouldn’t at least be ready [for] – knowing what I had to do, knowing my lines. “I made choices,” he adds. “I had conversations with Chabon. I felt like I was as prepared as I could be, without having acted in many, many years and without having played Riker in [15] years. So, when we got on the set together, I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly and how well it went. I had set myself up for, ‘Oh my God, I’m unprepared,’ or, ‘I’m not as prepared as I need to be for a scene with these two.’ And it was much ado about nothing. I was fine,” he says, laughing. “I was fine.”

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04 Jonathan Frakes surveys the crowd at Star Trek Las Vegas.

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As he notes, Frakes directed two episodes of Picard before taking his turn in front of the camera. His episodes followed on the heels of the first two, which were directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper. Like Frakes, she’d previously directed Discovery; she brought to the screen “Vaulting Ambition” and “The Red Angel,” while he helmed “Despite Yourself,” “New Eden,” and “Project Daedalus.” Frakes confirms that he spent time on the Picard set observing Culpepper, taking note of the story’s myriad TNG connections, as well as Culpepper’s choices in establishing the template of Picard’s tone, pace, and visual style. “The first two episodes are spent telling the audience where Picard is and has been, and how he got there for the last 20 years,” Frakes says. “So, when I got into the mix, I was deeper into the story. Hanelle had to establish that origin. As I told you, I wish I’d had the opening episodes, but now I feel like I really won the lottery by getting on board on Episodes 3 and 4, because the train was on the tracks and it was running great.

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“My first episode [as director] was like a western and my second was like a Kubrick-ian modern nightclub where there were deals done for body parts.” “I watched Hanelle on set. We had a style document that the cinematographers, Kurtzman, and probably [Co-Executive Producer] Akiva Goldsman had created. It was very specific to Picard. But I had a new cinematographer named Darran Tiernan. He and I interpreted that and applied it to my episodes. My first episode was like a western and my second was like a Kubrick-ian modern nightclub where there were deals done for body parts. [They were], stylistically, two completely different episodes. What was interesting is that Hanelle’s episodes are, I think, somewhat connected, and the block shooting [the same director working on episodes back to back] probably kept it all in step. My shows, three and four, were not connected at all.”

DOORS OPEN Many fans at first expected Picard to be a one-off, 10 episodes, over and

STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

done, a once-in-a-lifetime event. However, Stewart has stated that he views this as the first season of an ongoing series. That leaves the proverbial doors open for Frakes, and he’s more than ready to step through them anew as both an actor and director. “I am very eager,” Frakes acknowledges. “I believe, and I’m not sure when the decision will be made, but I know Patrick wants to do at least two more seasons. I know Chabon wants to do two more seasons; I know Kurtzman wants to do two more seasons. So, I’m optimistic, as always, that if that happens, I’ll get to do something [as a director]. Unless I really screwed up, I feel confident that I’ll be able to come back. I’m not sure that Picard will come back to visit the Rikers again, though that’d be great, but I’m certainly confident that I can get behind the camera again over there.”

J O N AT H A N F R A K E S

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MARINA SIRTIS

MARINA SIRTIS

TROI When Marina Sirtis learned from Patrick Stewart that he would be reprising the role of Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard, she was delighted for her Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star. Little did she know that she would soon be joining him, making her return in the show as Deanna Troi, 15 years after she last played the Betazoid counselor.

T

he last time Marina Sirtis played Deanna Troi was, of course, also the last time Jonathan Frakes played William Riker. It was 2005, and they’d been recruited by executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga to help close out an 18-year-long era of Star Trek – encompassing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, and a quartet of TNG feature films – by appearing in the Enterprise series finale, “These Are the Voyages…” Fast forward to summer 2019, and to a set in Los Angeles, where Sirtis and Frakes got their Imzadi groove on once again for Star Trek: Picard – meaning they also shared scenes with Picard himself, Patrick Stewart. Sirtis has been busy lately – making her West End debut in the play Dark Sublime, guest starring on The Orville (in an episode directed by Frakes), and prepping for a new indie feature, A Thousand Little Cuts – but she jumped at the opportunity to reunite with Frakes and Stewart for an episode of Picard. As energetic, off-color, and honest as ever, Sirtis fills us in on reprising her role as everyone’s favorite empathic counselor, starting with her reaction to Sir Patrick’s triumphant announcement at Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 that he’d

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committed to reprising his role of Jean-Luc Picard in a series that would explore what became of the character since fans last saw him in Nemesis.

“I was really, really looking forward to working with my pals again.” I HEARD A RUMOR “I was very surprised,” Sirtis explains. “Well, I say that because there were rumors for months before, weren’t there? I was of the opinion that it was all tosh, and they were just rumors, and it was just the fans’ wishful thinking, wanting to bring him back. But, I suppose, the rumors just wouldn’t go away. Then, when he announced [it] in Vegas, I was a little surprised. I just didn’t think that he was interested in reprising the role. So, how wrong was I?” she says, laughing. “Then we all went to dinner. Everyone else was being polite, and that’s not me. So, I said, ‘Come on then, Patrick, spill.’ Everyone was waiting until we’d ordered, and I was like, ‘No, no, no. We need to know now what is going on.’ And so, he told us. I think he felt a little

STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

awkward about it, because it was just him and not all of us. But I think we all agreed that if any of us had been in his shoes, we’d have done exactly the same thing. We were absolutely thrilled for him, and as excited to see it as anyone else.” Sirtis didn’t know then that she’d wind up in an episode of Picard. As the show evolved during the writing phase, the producers added in Data (Brent Spiner), since Picard’s guilt over the android’s sacrifice in Nemesis weighs heavily on him throughout the new show. Also part and parcel of Picard are the Borg, and so Jeri Ryan and Jonathan Del Arco came on board to once again portray Seven of Nine and Hugh Borg, respectively. Then, when the creative team decided that Picard needed to turn to some old friends for advice, they chose to have him drop in on the Rikers: Deanna and William (Frakes), who now live on the planet Nepenthe with their daughter, Kestra (Lulu Wilson). Only, it very nearly didn’t work out for Sirtis. She was off in London starring in Dark Sublime when Picard rolled camera, but production shifted the Troi-RikerPicard scenes to a later date in order to accommodate Sirtis’ schedule.

NO NERVES Jonathan Frakes has said that he was terrified to act again – and to play

01

MARINA SIRTIS

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MARINA SIRTIS

Riker – because he’d been focused for so many years on directing. And, he pointed out, heading into Picard, Stewart has been acting steadily all these years and Sirtis was coming straight from Dark Sublime, so both of them were in complete acting mode, their skills honed, while he was a bit rusty. But it’s a fair question to ask Sirtis: was she at all nervous about revisiting Troi after 14 long years away from the character? “Nervous?” Sirtis asks. “No. I wasn’t nervous. I was excited. I was really, really looking forward to working with my pals again. I don’t think I was nervous because… Maybe Jonathan’s right, and it was because I had just come straight off Dark Sublime. I literally closed on Saturday, got on a plane on Sunday, and was at the studio at eight o’clock on Monday morning for my costume fitting, and worked on Tuesday. So, I didn’t really have a chance to be nervous. “The only thing I was nervous about was getting jet lag in the middle of the day, but even that didn’t happen. Doing the play in England, actually, I was almost on the same schedule as getting up at four in the morning to work in Los Angeles. It’s a nighttime schedule, doing a play, and an early morning schedule doing a show or a movie. I found it was only an hour or two difference in the actual time I was getting up in the morning to go to work. So, I didn’t even feel that bad [physically].”

ISA AND CO

01 Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 02 The Newly married Riker and Troi with Picard in Star Trek Nemesis. 03 Marina Sirtis with Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, and Gate McFadden (TNG’s Dr. Crusher) at the Picard premiere.

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Sirtis filmed several scenes for her Picard episode, and in doing so performed opposite Frakes, Stewart, Lulu Wilson, and Isa Briones, who plays Soji. “I had some really lovely moments with Isa, with Troi doing her thing,” Sirtis says. “Isa’s really good. Oh my gosh. She’s really good! Her emotions are so at her fingertips that even when she’s off camera, doing off-camera dialogue, it’s exactly the same as when she’s on camera, which is rare, trust me! Even I don’t do that. That was amazing to me. I’m very impressed with that young lady. I think she’s going to be huge. We had some lovely scenes together. And then I had a TroiPicard scolding scene. I scolded him. “Johnny and I, the Rikers, we’re living on a planet that looks

02

“I said in an interview way back then that we won’t be doing this in 30 years. So obviously I’m not psychic in real life.” like Montana with our child. We’re civilians now. We’ve hung up our spacesuits. Lulu Wilson, who plays our daughter, is a very talented young actress. After she did Picard, she went off to be number one on the call sheet for an action movie. Lulu is so natural and authentic, and on her way to becoming a huge star. So, this is not the last we’ve heard of that girl – or Isa. It has always been a thing with The Next Generation, though. We got really good guest stars, and they’re just carrying on the tradition with Picard.” Observant readers surely caught Sirtis’ comment that Troi and Riker have hung up their spacesuits. That’s to say that she and Riker wear civilian clothes on Nepenthe. Sirtis certainly did not miss the counselor’s old formfitting jumpsuits. “When you’re wearing civvies, there’s a freedom,” the actress argues. “You can be more at ease. Those

STAR TREK: PICARD – THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

spacesuits, you really had to stand up straight and hold your tummy in. There was a lot going on. Not having to think about holding your stomach in, or standing up straight, it’s actually very freeing! So, that was lovely.”

GET YOUR SKATES ON Sirtis would be back for Season 2 of Picard in a heartbeat. “I’d put skates on to get there faster,” she says eloquently, and then breaks out laughing. The laughter continues when she contemplates how she might have reacted if, at the outset of The Next Generation in 1987, someone told her that not only would Star Trek still be a part of her life three decades later, but that in 2020 she’d be playing Deanna on a new Star Trek show. “I would have said, ‘What are you smoking?’” Sirtis exclaims. “I would have said, ‘Really?’ I mean, listen… I thought we weren’t going to get to a year. I thought it was going to be the best year I ever had on TV, but that that would be it. All of this, everything that’s happened, it wouldn’t have been in my conscious. I think I said in an interview way back then that we won’t be doing this in 30 years. So obviously I’m not psychic in real life,” she says, laughing again. “It’s extraordinary. Star Trek is a gift.”

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MARINA SIRTIS

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