Star Trek: The Motion Picture was disappointing for Stephen Collins, who played Willard Decker, but it wasn’t all because of the lack of box office success.
Getting the role was no big deal for Collins, who didn’t know that getting a role in the new film was a coveted thing. “Little did I know that tons of actors in Hollywood had been lining up around the block to get in and meet Robert Wise,” he said. “It’s just such a perverse thing about life and especially about show business, but when you don’t need the job that badly is when you seem to get it, and when you desperately want the job and know you can be brilliant in it, you usually don’t get it. Life isn’t fair that way and show business isn’t fair that way. Obviously there are great exceptions to the rule, but those are relatively few and far between. So I went in kind of cool as a cucumber. ‘Hi, Mr. Wise.’ I wasn’t nervous and when you’re not nervous you tend to do your best.”
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