A year after John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox) combined shooting Enterprise's second season with flying to Florida to film a part in the new film Out of Time, the film is now nearing release.

In a chat on the official Star Trek site, Billingsley spoke briefly about the film, which will feature Denzel Washington as a small town police chief who is double-crossed by his lover (story). "It will come out on October 10th and, much like a ground hog, it will retreat on October 12th," Billingsley said. "Only kidding, only kidding! I play Denzel's best friend, a scrofulous, amoral coroner."

Branching out into further acting roles seems to be Billingsley preference, as he said he had no interest in writing for Enterprise. "I was a creative writing major in college. I studied with Bernard Malamud, one of the great writers of the post-war era, and he taught me one valuable lesson: that I should, under no circumstances, ever write. And I took that lesson to heart."

Directing seems to be out for Billingsley as well. "I was a stage director, and love to work with actors and text, but film and television directing doesn't interest me very much," he admitted. "I'm ironically a bit of a technophobe and find the emphasis on handling the film-making technology to be unappealing. Dominic [Keating], on the other hand, does want to direct. The cast lives in terror of this day.:"

One aspect of television technology Billngsley has at least learned to use is his television remote. "[I watch] Six Feet Under, The Sopranos. I was a Buffy [The Vampire Slayer] fan, Masterpiece Theatre, I watched The X-Files for a while, but eventually got exhausted by it. I have 24 on DVD, but haven't started watching it yet. Waiting for Alias to come out on DVD. Liked West Wing, have lost interest. Ditto ER. Still like Friends. (I know that makes me hateful in many people's eyes.) Ditto Frasier. God, I watch too much TV!"

Many more answers from Billingsley, including his thoughts on conventions and more revelations about Phlox, can be found in the full chat transcript on the official Star Trek site.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!