The Captains Page #5

Patrick and me, Avery,

They were thinking,

constitutionally,

is she up to it?

Then, can she

speak the language?

Which it...

It might as well be Shakespeare,

it's so highly stylized,

to be able to

spin that language out

and make it accessible to

the audience at large

is a gift

not a lot of actors have,

Lastly, I think there has to be

a great sense of discipline,

We are all

disciplined people,

Very punctual,

So I could never be late,

I could never really complain,

I had to be on my...

I had to do it,

and I did it,

so I'm very proud of that,

- And so was I,

- I'll bet you were,

Yeah,

And how do you do this thing

and what's the manner

in which you say these words?

And therefore,

the classical work

- that all of us have done...

- Yeah,

came to use,

Ah, New York City,

the home of American theater,

I came here in 1956

with the

Stratford Shakespeare Company

and I was performing in

Marlowe's ''Tamburlaine''

at the famous

Winter Garden Theatre,

Agents found me,

producers found me,

The Broadhurst Theatre,

Iegendary theater,

another one,

This is...

1919, I think

it was built,

''Les Misrables,'' ''Cats,''

Gigantic productions

of which ''The World of

Suzie Wong'' was one,

In the late '50s,

it ran for two years,

I was the leading actor,

At this theater,

while I was playing

''The World of Suzie Wong,''

''funny Girl'' opened,

Barbara Streisand

opened here,

This was

the beginning of her career,

While I'd be in my dressing room

one day,

there was a water pipe going

from my dressing room down,

descending into wherever,

and there was a hole

by the water pipe,

so I looked down

and I saw that that hole

Iooked down into

the dressing room

of the dancing girls in

''funny Girl,''

So I spent part of

my time in my dressing room,

trying to see if there was

water in the pipe,

So this is Shubert AIley

and I was in this theater

in a play called

''Shot in the Dark,''

Julie Harris, Walter Matthau,

and he was hysterical,

Julie was hysterical,

I was pretty funny,

and we ran for a year,

The common denominator

with the captains

is that all of our

roots are based in theater,

At one time or another,

we've all played memorable

characters on the stage,

Did I say characters?

Did you ever see

''Star Trek''?

Ahh!

Yeah, I love it, yeah!

I did, yeah!

Did it change

your life at all?

Well, it's still changing,

- And you...

- Ahh !

And as Apple Annie,

you watched ''Star Trek''?

- Yes, wonderful,

- What was your favorite?

I forget the first

couple of...

- Years?

- Yeah, wonderful,

It can't be beat,

- With Captain Kirk?

- Yeah!

- Yeah, yeah,

- Yeah, Captain Kirk?

- And Spock?

- Yeah,

The whole cast, I love it,

There's nothing

like theater,

Why are you called

Apple Annie?

Well, it's like

a ''Bigfoot George,''

That's what the Italians do,

they have a lead-in,

Yeah,

I loves you,

you look so nice,

- Oh, thank you...

- I'll take you,

In Jewish,

you say you're a bargain,

Bye-bye, honey,

That's...

And that's New York,

He's a bargain!

Because the work on

''Star Trek'' was...

The scenes and stories

were generally serious,

the moments between

the filming

were where

we had the balance,

the yang to the yin,

and that's where we were

just shamelessly silly,

Maybe the rest of

the cast of ''Next Generation''

were having a good time

right from the get-go,

I wasn't,

I was too nervous,

I felt out of my depth,

out of my comfort zone,

I had never filmed in Hollywood

in my life before,

I had no ambitions

to film in Hollywood,

I was just scared, scared and

exhausted all the time,

I'd never worked

so hard in my life,

I called a meeting of

the principal cast of

''Star Trek:

The Next Generation,''

and I spoke to them very

seriously, and I said,

I think there is

too much messing about,

I think there's... too much

fooling around

goes on in this show,

We are wasting time,

We get days off

occasionally,

Some of us get,

you know, a week off at a time,

The rest of these people

on the set, they don't,

they're here

every day, day in, day out,

and I think we've got to be

aware of that

and I think we need to be

taking this more seriously,

And I remember Denise Crosby,

who was Natasha Yar,

saying to me,

''Oh, come on, Patrick,

we gotta have some fun,''

And I said,

''We are not here to have fun!''

They never, ever let me

forget that,

because the one

thing that I took away

from my ''Star Trek'' experience,

every episode, every movie,

all four of them,

was that for the first

time in my life as an actor,

my fellow actors showed me

how to do good work

and have fun

at the same time,

- Whoa, they changed you?

- Yes,

Morning, darling,

''Deep Space Nine'' was funny,

because it's like Avery

was the leader,

he was our captain,

we paid attention

and he did set the tone,

He set the tone in terms of

respect and seriousness,

Any scene, especially

two-character scenes

is like a sport

and you're

playing it together

and you want to get

the volleys going,

You're not

competing with each other,

but you are demanding

of each other

that you deliver the goods

and with Avery,

that was implicit,

You're firing me?

I have no choice,

Benny, it's his decision,

Well... you can't fire me,

I quit,

To hell with you

and to hell

with Stone!

Try to stay calm, Benny!

No, I'm tired

of being calm,

Calm never got me

a damn thing!

Do you try and relate

the music to the performance?

It's all music,

I mean, I could talk about

literature,

you know, in terms of music,

not just the form of it,

but, you know, like the sound

and the complexity

of the movement

and the expression of it,

Sure, I sure could,

Well, you know, Art Blakey said

that, you know, expression...

You know, he's talking

idiomatically,

but not so much

so that, you know,

the highest form

of expression

is this music,

from God through me to you,

It is as wide and varied

as there are

people on the earth,

That's what I know,

- Music,

- Yes,

Absolutely,

Everybody has their song,

Go ahead,

- Everybody has their music,

- Go on,

- They vibrate according to...

- Go on,

- their own...

- Go on,

- tempo and timbre,

- Go on, go on,

So everybody has a unique piece

of music,

I think so,

Go on,

They play it and it goes out

into the universe,

We don't know

whether it returns or not,

- Returns to whom?

- Exactly,

- Does it make a cycle?

- Well, I'm not sure about that,

You know, I mean, that's the

what do you call it of humankind

and to some extent, you know,

the desire for a return,

That's the, what do

you call it, of humankind,

the small of humankind,

I need to get it back,

No, you don't,

I need to believe

that my existence and my music

- i n so m e m a n n e r...

- M ea n s so m et h i n g ,

Continues,

Whether you get it...

Whether you

hear it back or not,

When I took command

ten years ago,

I saw myself as an explorer,

I thought all the risks

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