March 28 2024

TrekToday

An archive of Star Trek News

Trinneer Would Like To Direct

By Caillan
February 16, 2002 - 7:20 AM

Connor Trinneer (Charles 'Trip' Tucker) told fans last week he'd like to follow in the footsteps of Trek alumni such as Jonathan Frakes (William Riker) and Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris) and try his hand at directing.

Asked whether he'd like to helm an episode during an online chat at StarTrek.com, Trinneer replied "yeah, most definitely."

Trinneer is eager to become the latest actor to graduate from the 'Star Trek Director's School.' "They're really good here about [that]," he said. "If there's an interest from an actor to direct, if they follow the proper channels they'll have that opportunity. In fact Roxann Dawson [B'Elanna Torres actress who helmed 'The Andorian Incident'] is directing an episode right now."

Since getting the Enterprise gig, Trinneer's had the chance to meet other famous Trek alumni. "I met Patrick Stewart," he recalled. "It was a real thrill for me because I knew who he was well before he got Next Generation because he's just an amazing classical actor along with what else he does. We looked at some of the things he did with Shakespeare while I was in drama school and it was a thrill to meet him. I was talking to an acting hero of mine as a contemporary and inside I was like, 'Damn, I'm talking to Patrick Stewart!'"

One chatter wanted to know how the actor came up with the engineer's accent. "Trip's accent is like Northern Arkansas, that sort of Northern part of the South," he said. "The accent I picked up from my family; my grandparents on my mother's side are all from southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. We messed around with how deep we wanted the accent and decided we wanted it to be fairly light in terms of its drawl. So that's where I sort of picked the region that I could get an accent from, that I thought would be workable for everybody - but it's not mine!"

The accent might not be real, but some aspects of Enterprise are frighteningly realistic for the actors, such as the conditions portrayed in the episode 'Shuttlepod One.' "They'd built a structure inside the sound stage where the shuttlepod was and they had five industrial air conditioners going full blast the whole time. We had dry ice packed under the flooring of the shuttlepods and before each take they'd blast the shuttle pod with Nitrogen so it was exactly that cold all week. It was hot as hell outside!"

To read the full transcript from Trinneer's chat, in which the actor also talked about Porthos and 'Unexpected,' head over to StarTrek.com.

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

Find more episode info in the Episode Guide.

You may have missed