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Voyager: The Return, Page 2

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Meeting Kate...

I don't have any great story about about my photo session with Robbie. Just that he was, once again, very friendly and nice. In fact, reading other people's reports on The Return, it seems Robbie really impressed everyone with his willingness to chat and do little favours. However I do have a little story about Kate...

Now, I've got to admit that once again I was a little cheeky, and took up a print as well as my poster, in the hope that she'd offer to sign it as well. Well, I didn't actually ask... and Kate is not as soft a touch as Robbie! Luckily though, it was fairly quiet at that point, so I got the chance to talk to her briefly.

It's the character of Janeway that really made me fall in love with 'Voyager' in the first place, so meeting the woman who plays her was quite a moment. I could have said that, but how many times has she heard it? I reckoned I would have only moments so I wanted to say something more personal. So I went up, told her 'I bought this print, but I want you to sign this poster', got my autograph, gave her my card, then started to stammer. I never stammer! My usual response to being star struck is to spout rubbish like an idiot! Anyway, Kate didn't say a word while I got my tongue untwisted. Then I told her that I'd recently had amnesia where I'd lost my memory of several years of my life, and that, for me, her acting in the scene on the Bridge at the end of 'Workforce II' captured the feeling of trying to get back into a life that you only half remembered. She seemed really touched, and said 'What a nice thing to say. Thank you...' I'm not actually sure if she actually clasped my hand, but there was certainly that atmosphere! So I said thank you back, and walked off. Then as I put my stuff away in my bag I found myself going 'she thanked me! She thanked me!' And my knees going weak!

Lolita introducing Vaughn

Vaughn…

I think I was a little too tripped out to take masses of notes during the next Q&A, which was Vaughn Armstrong. He talked about the various parts he has played (he must have played more Star Trek species than anyone else). Playing a Klingon was fun. You had to be more careful with a Romulan (because they are more restrained characters). The Borg were good for overtime, since so much goes wrong and has to be re-filmed.

The worst prosthetics were those for the Hirogen, as there was nowhere for the sweat to go. He also tends to suffer from a nasal drip... When he played a Borg, they put the eyepiece over his good eye, which helped with the overtime...

He loves acting. The whole set revolves around what you are doing. He loves that!

Q: What can he say about the new series?

Nothing! It's going to be great. It has a whole new approach. He also talked about Scott Backula being the 'nicest guy', a real 'professionals' professional'.


Vaughn

Alice

May be it's time to sum up a few bits and pieces which I haven't got down in my notes, so I'm not sure of the exact timings! Suffice it to say I wandered in and out of the Q&A's at several points! I had my picture taken with Alice (a.k.a. the lovely Alice), which was fun, and nice as she remembered me from bumping into each other at another point. I found out that I'd missed my photo session with Keegan, who'd zoomed in and out while I was running back to the hotel I think, but they said they'd try and fit me in the next day. I also found out that I had not won in the raffle to have my picture taken with Kate. Well, I NEVER win raffles. I was surprisingly unbothered, as I'd had my moment with her, which I'm sure was more than many people got, not to mention all the other fabulous things happening... I think by then everybody at the convention, staff, guests and attendees, were in a happy haze...

Next in my notes... Alice's Q&A! I missed the very start, but when I came in she was talking about how the Queen used Picard to get at Data - she felt that was always her aim.

Q: What was the best bit about playing the Queen? (Asked by a child I think)

Being scary! She put on the too-tight suite, then the lenses... there was a moment when she put in the lenses for the first time and then looked at the people around her, the make up people who had created the Queen, and they looked scared!

Q: (Spoilers for 'First Contact' and 'Endgame') How does she feel about being killed twice?

Alice did ask if 'Endgame' had been shown in the UK... but unfortunately those who hadn't seen it didn't shout loud enough, because she did rather blow the ending! Well, what the person who asked the question hadn't already blown...

Alice with a gift

She couldn't watch it. Seeing Picard snapping her spine, then her literally falling apart.... But (as if whispering into our collective ear) she doesn't think the Queen is really gone....

About the Queen's power: it was weird being powerful, but also naked (I think she had said earlier that she felt pretty much naked in the suite). That power was terrifying and interesting to explore.

Q: How did she get the part in the film 'Sleepwalker'?

She was in 'Ghost Story' and the press guy on that directed 'Sleepwalkers'. She actually didn't want it, didn't like the script, but 'Mick' kept saying 'lets talk about it'. He went through it with her and she began to see how funny it was. In the end she had so much fun doing the film.

Alice talked at some length about the scene in 'First Contact where the Queen first appears. It involved marrying together several different shots: one of a body cast, and one of her: she was put on a cradle with blue screen cloth around her, then lifted up and down. A motion control camera was used to shoot her, and memorised its movements, so as to make the same movements in the other shot. Then the two shots could be put together.

The bit with the 'head squiggle' they got wrong, though they spent days rehearsing it. It took months and huge amounts of money for the people from Industrial Light and Magic to put it right.

Before working on the film she saw (I think she said) 4 scenes. In Star Trek no one sees the whole script. She'd worked with Jonathan (Frakes) before, and loved playing the Queen in the audition. But she didn't hear she had got it for 3 weeks.

It took 7 hours to do the makeup for the film, though it was shorter for TV. By the time it was done she felt like she was someone else.

The first day in the costume: they started putting it on at 2 am in the morning, and of course she was drinking and eating. By 3 in the afternoon she was desperate for a pee, and just had to go! 45 minutes later she finally got back on set... Her hands and feet had swollen up and they couldn't get her back into the suite. It must have been the most expensive pee ever! Apparently the man who made her suite once made a pink cat suit for another actress, with slits in the feet. When she needed to go she would just stand over a drain. He offered to do the same for Alice, but she declined!

I missed the end of Alice's talk. I think I needed a break before Kate's session.

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