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LeVar Burton - Star Trek: The Next Generation's Geordi LaForge
Military chique
It’s not just the science community who’ve embraced Star Trek
I went inside the mountain at NORAD, one of the most top secret defence locations in the Strategic Air Command in Colorado. And they were, at that time in the process of re-designing their situation room to look and feel more like the bridge of the Enterprise.
It’s amazing just how the seams start to blend at some point. That's part of the power of Star Trek, it does cause us to sort of look inward and draw out of ourselves what’s possible.
Those brainiacs at NASA and then the military industrial complex, these are people that have spent an awful lot of time in their lives dreaming too, you know. It’s just interesting that that link is so strong and that it got stronger, the longer the series was on the air. The more and more Star Trek became sort of entrenched in the culture the more these people really embraced it.
Technobabble
As an actor how did you cope with learning lots of very technical lines?
Technobabble brings with it its own challenge. Because it really doesn’t mean anything. Well I mean it does to the technically and scientifically proficient, but it really didn’t mean much to me, because I’m not an engineer, I just played one on TV.
The methodology that I found most successful was to really spit it out as fast as I possibly could. Giving the illusion that I knew what I was talking about when, in fact, I really didn’t.
But Brent’s technique is completely and totally different. Brent never went to sleep in seven years of doing this show, unless and until he was letter perfect. He could go through every line he had for the next day without making a mistake.
I would go over it the night before and then, in the morning, I would pick it up again. More often than not, I’d learn it right before having to deliver it.
It does sound cool, for characters like Data and Geordi to walk around sort of spitting out this jargon that is sort of flying and floating above our heads, but with that sort of ease and grace that speaks to the fact that they’re totally and completely comfortable in this world.
The acting of science
Which of the science aspects of the show did you find were most fun for you to play with as an actor?
We always loved it when we had a holodeck episode, when we had an opportunity to dress up and to play different characters. The Holmes and Watson episodes for Data and Geordi, the Robin Hood episode, you know, those were a lot of fun for us.I think the holodeck was a very cool concept, you know. You can create a three dimensional reality ... I mean, how cool is that?
There would be no Star Trek unless there were transporter malfunctions. There would be no point to having a transporter unless it broke down or trapped your transporter pattern or mixed it up … all good story points.
Pride
Are you proud to be associated with a TV show that’s inspired so many people to take a technical science career?
I’m enormously proud of the fact that Star Trek has really not just sparked an interest, but encouraged, a few generations of people to go into the sciences.
Case in point, my friend Mae Jameson, the first African American woman in space. Mae Carol Jameson became first a scientist and then an astronaut because of her love for Star Trek, seeing Nichelle Nichols on the bridge of the Enterprise really inspired her. As it did me when I was a kid.
I read a lot of science fiction books when I was a kid. And very few of them had heroes of colour in the pages of those novels. There were some, but they were the exceptions and so that’s why Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future was really important to me growing up because it said when the future comes, there will be people like you who are vital and important to that mission of going out there and boldly exploring.
After becoming a scientist and an astronaut flying on the Shuttle, we brought Mae in to be a transporter officer in a scene so that she could sort of complete that circle in her life.
Infinite diversity
What made you a big fan?
Gene’s vision of the future – see what I love about Star Trek is that it’s about inclusion. It’s about diversity and inclusion. Star Trek says there is an infinite number of life forms that exist out there in – in the cosmos and they all have value. Every single one of them.
That is the basis of the prime directive, you know. We are explorers, we’re out there seeking out new life and new civilisations, but when we make contact with them, it is essential that we don’t interrupt their natural process of evolution. Why? Because we have respect for that process.
Gene was a visionary. Gene was one of those rare souls who, in spite of the culture in which he was indoctrinated, and Gene was a cop and a pilot - he had the soul of a poet.
The interesting thing about Gene was he was an agnostic and one of the things that so many people, myself included, have always found comforted in Star Trek are the spiritual messages, the spirituality that Star Trek seems to express.
It was astounding, to me, to meet Gene and – and discover that none of that stuff was there by design. People do interpret them in the work, but I was amazed to discover that as an agnostic, Gene never wanted to deal with any sort of issues of deity or spirituality in Star Trek at all.
Auditioning for Geordi
As a fan of the initial series, what was it like when you were auditioning for Next Generation?
Years ago I was doing a TV movie called Emergency Room and it a fairly miserable experience. But there was a producer on that show, a man named Bob Justman. And I knew his name from the credits of Star Trek. And we used to sit around, during lighting set ups and talk about Star Trek. I just loved to hear stories about it because I was just such a big fan.
Flash forward, I don’t know, six, seven years later, I get this call from Bob Justman and he’s working at Paramount on this new Star Trek series and he said I remember your love of the show, we’ve got this character, would you be interested in coming in and seeing us? And I said is Gene involved? He said he is. And I said I’ll be right there.
Having a chance not only to meet Gene, but to read for him with an eye towards becoming a member of a cast of a new version of Star Trek was pretty exciting for me.
At the beginning, you know, there was a lot of conversation in the press at what a bad idea this was. To do another version of Star Trek. Deep down inside, in my heart, I knew that competing with the original cast was an impossibility in terms of, you know, going out to the fan base and saying, you know, please accept us, please love us. I thought that since Gene was involved we had a real good shot of making a good show that would carry on in that tradition of Star Trek.
Loving the new Trek
It took some time for the public to take Next Gen to their hearts.
Being embraced by the public was a process. It didn’t happen immediately. It took some time.
I guess it was some time between seasons one and two. It was puzzling to me when I would read in the press that so many ardent and staunch fans felt that there was no room in their hearts for another Star Trek, they were so loyal to the original. And I thought wait a minute, these are Star Trek fans, these people are by nature, open minded. I didn’t understand, you know, where that sort of closed mindedness was coming from.
During those first two seasons I think a lot of that went on, there was a lot of avoidance and then once people started sampling and experienced, you know, what it was they sort of stuck with us.
And then, of course, we got better. I think that first season we were all very terrible. It’s pretty painful to watch, that first season of shows, as we were all trying so hard to find who we were. In our second season we got a lot better and a lot more relaxed and then, I think, by the third season we really began to hit our stride.
A friendly crew
Did Next Gen get better as you all became friends?
I think that helped enormously. I think the relationships that developed really showed up on screen. They really showed up on screen. When I got married my best man was Brent and my groomsmen were Michael and Jonathan and Patrick. No-matter what, we will always be family to each other. I mean in every respect.
There have been times when, there have been feuds within the family, when it hasn’t been all hugs and kisses. But we have stuck together. There is no way we can not be a part of each other’s lives. We’ve just shared way too much.
Group dynamics
Patrick Stewart said the stars were shining on you as an ensemble group.
Yeah. It’s a rare thing, I think. It’s nothing that can be really orchestrated. You can hire the best actors and you can hope they get along, but there’s something magical about this group, that it really is one of those times when the sum is greater than the individual parts.
When we do this next movie it will have been three years since we put on those space suits, but I guarantee you the very first day it’s immediate. It’s absolutely instantaneous. We really know who these characters are. Much better than anyone - including the people who created them.
Career suicide?
Are there any frustrations in appearing in a very long running TV series?
The obvious pitfall is if it happens to sort of consume your career to the point where you are unable to break out of that. I have been lucky, you know. I came to Star Trek already having been a part of a major piece of television history and portrayed a huge cultural icon in Kunte Kinte in Roots and had already had some experience of sort of staying one step ahead of that.
I’ve had a terrific career that has spanned twenty years and I think the key to that sort of longevity is being able to continually re-invent yourself and the work that I do in children’s television and having hosted and produced a children’s series for 18 years in this country, the work that I’ve done on Star Trek and now producing and directing and writing. It all, you know, goes toward helping me stay ahead of the box.
The movies
How do you think the films run in parallel alongside the TV franchise?
The advantage of doing a film every couple of years is that it gives us an opportunity to revisit these characters from time to time and to check in with them and to see what they’re doing.
The danger is that we fail to take advantage of the supposition that they will have grown since our last visitation.
The obvious advantage of doing a movie every couple of years, as opposed to a television series is that it obviously enables us to do other things with our lives. There is really, when you’re doing a television series, especially one that shoots the way Star Trek does - twenty six episodes, ten months of the year - by the time you wrap that twenty sixth episode of the season, you’re exhausted and really need a two month break to sort of recuperate and – and come back to your centre.
I have loved over the past several years being able to sink my time into developing my producing and directing career.
The new movie
So you’re looking forward to getting together with the rest of the cast?
I can’t wait. There’s such a feeling of home when we’re all together. Because our lives have all moved on in different directions, it’s more and more difficult to maintain those bonds of contact.
To have the opportunity to get together and laugh with my friends every day, you know, and get a cheque at the end of the week, it’s not a bad deal.
Sexy boy
What was it like when Patrick was described as one of the fiftiest sexies men in the world?
Not in the world. Alive. One of the fiftiest sexiest men alive was, I think, the designation from People Magazine. I think that title speaks for itself, doesn’t it? No comment necessary there. I mean how can one, you know, improve on that?
You know, just to be acquainted with one of the fifty sexiest men alive, let alone, you know, have a working relationship with one, is quite an honour. A rare opportunity.
Do you miss the series?
How did you feel about other crews taking your space?
Well I have to say that at the end of Next Generation it was the end of a seven year run and then we went immediately into the filming of Generations. In my own case I had I think two days between. Two days break.
Then at the end of that my wife and I had our first child, so there really wasn’t time. This is my point, for me there really wasn’t time to sort of go through a mourning process until much later and by then I was so exhausted and in need of a break. I just wanted a nap. And I wasn’t getting many of those because of the new baby in the house…
When I directed my first episode of Voyager, that was a little odd because their sets, for the most part, were in the same place our sets were: their bridge was where our bridge was, their engineering was where my engineering was. I think the only distinctions were that Janeway’s ready room was where our observation lounge was and their conference room was where our captain’s ready room was. Other than that, all of their corridors were in the same place, transporter room, sick bay.
It was kind of bizarre because the space was familiar and even the sort of layout of what was designed in the space was familiar but it wasn’t our space. They weren’t our sets. So that was kind of weird.
Enterprise
Are you looking forward to the new series, Enterprise? How do you think that’s shaping up now?
Yes, I am looking forward to directing my first episode of Enterprise.
I’ve met Scott Bakula and I like him and I think he’s a good choice for a captain. He obviously has a huge fan base on his own in the science fiction realm. It should be fun.
I guess the fans will be the judge. They are the final arbiters of just how many times we get to go to this well, aren’t they?
VISOR Pain
What’s it like acting with a VISOR?
It’s pretty much a living hell. Putting on the VISOR is a really interesting thing. 85 to 90 per cent of my vision is taken away when the VISOR goes on and so it made it very difficult to see and, in the beginning, it made it nearly impossible to navigate.
I bumped into everything the first season - Light stands, overhead microphones, cables at my feet - I tripped over it all, I walked and sometimes ran into walls and pieces of set. It was really, really hard. So it’s a sort of conundrum - the blind man, who puts on the VISOR and sees much more than everyone else around him, when the actor actually does that he’s turned into a blind person.
Then there was the pain. In the second season we re-designed the VISOR and made it heavier and the way we actually affixed it was that we screwed it, we literally screwed it into my into my head and so there were screws that we would turn and there were flanges on the inside that would press into my temples and so after fifteen or twenty minutes of that I got headaches. So I had a daily headache for about six years. Which was also no fun.
Rick Berman and I had many conversations, especially in those last couple of years. The VISOR is one of those ways that we immediately communicate to the audience the sort of level of technological sophistication in that 24th Century setting. And so he was really reluctant, you know, to give up one of one of those icons.
Killer costumes
Patrick Stewart said the original costumes caused you all lots of pain, is that true?
Well the space suit is just an unnatural thing to wear. It was designed for human beings, but it turned out to be not so human user friendly. It was always uncomfortable. I mean spandex isn’t, you know, exactly a material that exists in nature.It didn’t breathe, it didn’t move. It was tough to wear.
Didn’t give you backache like Patrick?
No, but he’s a big whiner. We none of us liked it, but we didn’t whine like he did. No that’s not true, we all whined about our space suits. We all hated our space suits. I think he just whined the loudest.