ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Robert Picardo: It was an interesting moment because it’s the 30th anniversary this year of our series, and the first time I was on stage with all eight of my colleagues in 10 years since our 20th. It doesn’t mean we don’t see each other. But for all nine of us to be together …, So for me, who’s about to go back to Canada to start season two of the new show, Starfleet Academy, it was just a unique sort of pivoting point between looking backward and looking forward. The audience response was incredible. There was a very memorable fan, who came from Brazil just to meet all nine of us. And during the photo she took with us, she burst into uncontrollable tears, and she was laughing, but still could not stop crying. So we’re trying to clean her up and get her to stop weeping long enough to take a picture. And then the moment she walked out of frame, she gave this wail, this enormous crossover between joy and agony. It was crazy, but it was convincing that we meant a lot to her.

I want to know what’s it like when somebody walks up to you and says, “I became a doctor because, as a kid, I saw you on a television show.â€�

I feel like it made up for the fact that I bailed out of pre-med to become an actor! If you became a doctor because of my work as an actor, then my work is done. Because my lifetime ambition throughout my childhood was to be a doctor myself. It feels gratifying because people have overlapped the inspiration of watching “Star Trek” and, perhaps watching my character in particular, has somehow so spoken to their personal lives . Yeah, gratifying is the word. But it’s also a little spooky. 


In what way?

Spooky in that to have had a profound influence on someone’s life that you have never met prior to this moment when they come to you at a convention, and share this story with you. It just makes your work feel more important as an actor. We sometimes feel that we’re involved in a very frivolous occupation. And sometimes that seems a bit silly, especially in times of crisis, where the drama of real life events is so overpowering or scary and then look at us. And, especially at this age of my life, it makes it feel important and worthwhile. And for a guy who’s about to turn 72, I could use important and worthwhile.

You have a couple of heavy hitters in this new show in . Are you getting to spend time with them?

Paul and I have certain overlaps in our background. We’re both Yale graduates. In fact, his dad was the president of Yale right after I graduated.

In fact, his father was the commissioner of Major League Baseball, and I have this wonderfully romantic notion in my head of you and Paul going off, after a shoot, to see a Blue Jays game. Has that ever happened?

It hasn’t yet. The reason Paul was on our show is certainly not that he needs a job as an actor, but that he is a “Star Trek” fan and was asked at an interview, “What would you like to do now as an actor?â€� And he specifically said that he wanted to play an alien on “Star Trek.” that expressed desire in print is what brought him to our show. I will make it clear to him that if he comes back to ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½Â â€” especially since I’m living a short walk from the Blue Jays stadium — he’s coming to a Blue Jays game, all right? You got my word, and maybe we’ll even invite you.

It’s a deal. When you and I last spoke, we did talk a bit about whether you got to see much of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. You’ve had more time now to think about whether the city works. Whatcha think?

I first visited ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ in the late 1970s, and it did work. I was amazed because I was coming from New York, so when there was no bulletproof glass between me and the bank teller, I thought, “What the heck is going on here?â€� So, yeah, it seemed incredibly safe, clean, beautiful architecture and modest traffic. Now, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ traffic is amazingly bad. So I would say it’s more chaotic. But it still works as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been treated with nothing but kindness up there. And during a time when someone whose name I won’t mention seems to be trying to make feelings between our historic allies, the Canadians and the Americans, terrible after generations of affection and mutual support, at no moment do I ever feel blamed as an American for what’s going on. And I’m perfectly happy to drink Canadian whisky when I’m there.

Since you raised it, when it happens that you either encounter or engage in a conversation in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ about what’s going on in your country these days, where your president is not necessarily our favourite person at the moment, how do you handle all that?

Well, um, I’m not a fan, as he might say. I worked for the election of Kamala Harris.

What did you do?

We, along with many of my actor colleagues and many of my science colleagues, had fundraisers. One of them was called something like . 
It was basically people who worked for NASA and “Star Trek.” And many of us feel that our democratic ideals are being challenged on a daily basis, that the rising tide of authoritarianism in our country is startling and precipitous. Our president just announced that we have military occupation, I call it, but military presence in Washington, D.C, just because the President said, it’s dirty and there’s too many homeless people, so we have to get them out. Well, I don’t look at hiding a problem as solving a problem. But that kind of thinking doesn’t seem to be of anyone’s concern in the present leadership. And so, yes, it’s a subject of concern of mine, of many, many of my professional colleagues, many of my friends, and frankly, many Americans. It’s a scary, scary time.

Having said that, have you thought, yourself, about how much more authoritarian and less democratic the United States would have to become before you made a decision that was big, as in, maybe I have to leave?

Boy, this is the frog in the pot question that we all wonder. Yes, the pot is heating up quickly. We know this from history. If you wait too long to leave … I was in the musical “Cabaret,” and I played the Jewish fruit vendor who says, “Oh, you know, it’ll pass.â€� And then, of course, he goes to a concentration camp and dies. I’m amazed at what, at least tacitly, we seem to be accepting. It seems that Democrats are finally getting their resistance tactics a little more together. I mean the Democrats have been kind of a circular firing squad for a while, and now I think the resistance is getting better planned and more coherent.

Let’s end on a bit of a happier note if we can, because I was looking at your body of work. Do you have any idea how many movies you’ve been in and how many television series you’ve been in?

No, I don’t. And the thing is, Voyager, for example, if you say I was in Star Trek Voyager, that’s 172 episodes.

But that’s only one series out of … do you know how many series you’ve been in?

No. 


124. Do you know how many movies you’ve been in?

I always say about 30.

No, 47. I mean, you have a prodigious amount of work on your resumé. So the last question has to be, what have you not yet done that you still want to do? 


I used to say I wanted to be in a Broadway musical. And that was an ambition for a long time. I did a couple of leads on Broadway in my youth. Now at my age, I would be the old guy with hopefully one solo. The problem with that, of course, is that it’s you have to commit at least a year of your life, and presently, I couldn’t do that. I’m under contract for the future. But I would love to be on stage again in New York, in a limited run.

Live long and prosper.

Live long and prosper.