When you got the audition for Voyager, had you anticipated getting some work on Deep Space 9?

I hadn�t really � well, I heard a rumour at one point that they were creating this new show, Deep Space 9. I knew they liked my performance on The Next Generation, they liked the character I played and they liked working with me, and I heard a rumour that they were going to maybe bring that character from The Next Generation onto Deep Space 9. I think there was some brief talk of that, and then it never happened. It would make sense because my character in The Next Generation was a trouble maker, he got in a lot of trouble, so he could have been sent off to some space station in the middle of nowhere and it�s the end of the line for him. That would have fit that character. But that never really happened.

When Voyager came around they called me up and they said, �Look, we�ve created this role, it�s very much like what you did on The Next Generation, but it�s a different name, it's got a different background, but it's the same tone and the same qualities that you play.� I actually heard, from friends of mine - actors - that had been called in to audition for Tom Paris, for the role, and they were told that they were looking for a Robert McNeill type actor, which I was very flattered by: that they were using me as the mould for that role.

At the time Voyager came around, I was doing a little off-Broadway play in New York, I�d just had my second child, and I needed a money job - no more theatre, art for no money jobs, I needed a TV job. So I called them up and said �I�m Robert McNeill, you�re looking for a Robert McNeill type, I�m Robert McNeill, I can do this.� They flew me in from New York and at the studio we went through that process and I got the job and it was great. You know, by then � my Next Generation experience was very different, I knew nothing about Star Trek had no expectations. By the time Voyager came around, I knew what a great experience it had been on the Next Generation, and I knew what the whole franchise, the whole legacy of it could mean, so I really wanted that job.