Tucker Smallwood & Laurence Monoson Give Their Views on Star Trek's Fate

By Ian M. Cullen

While attending the SF Ball over the weekend of the of the 11 th through to 13 th there were quite a few actors in attendance who had made a splash into the Sci Fi Genre, the most notable two Star Trek guest there were Jonathon Frakes and Patrick Stewart, but they were not the only actors there who were representing Star Trek. In fact there were two fairly well known character actors there who had in the past played roles in Star Trek as well as other Science Fiction shows. Tucker Smallwood is best known to fans as the Xindi Primate who appeared in numerous episodes that dealt with Star Trek: Enterprise 's Xindi story arc of Season 3 of the show. Smallwood also played the role of Admiral Bullock in the Star Trek Voyager episode ‘In the Flesh' .

Laurence Monoson has not had as prominent a role in Star Trek, but like Smallwood he has been in numerous genre shows and has also played two different roles in a Star Trek: Series. Star Trek fans will remember Monoson as 1 st Officer Mathew Ryan in the first season Enterprise episode ‘Fortunate Son‘ and some fans may even remember him as the trainee story teller Hovath from the 1 st Season DS9 episode ‘The Story Teller'

Both these actors were on hand at the SF Ball to answer fan questions about the various different roles that they have played. One thing that both actors agree on is that acting in a Star Trek show is far less of a collaborative process than acting in other television series. Monoson related a somewhat amusing anecdote about having to cut his side burns in order to fit in with what the producers wanted, the actor did not really want to cut his side burns off for a one shot role, and he refused to cut his side burns. Eventually make up had to call the producer onto the sound stage in order to negotiate with the actor. “Everything's a big deal then they had to get the producer in to sit me down and I said, ‘You know am not cutting my side burns for this one episode, when you've informed me that am a regular then maybe we can talk.'” The actor added that they eventually came to a compromise and he allowed them to shorten his side burns for the episode, but the actor is respectful of the series in spite of referring to them as “Intense”.

Tucker Smallwood who has also had experience with Star Trek described the Star Trek set as Unique in terms of the lack of collaboration between actors and the production team. “They are unique in my experience I've been in LA for almost 40 years now. I change everybody's dialogue it's nothing personal, I know my own rhythms and generally writers know that I will respect their intent but I know how my character speaks and if it's an authority figure you can't be looking for how to say it.” The actor added that an authority figure would know exactly what they were going to say and they would have no qualms about saying it either.

Smallwood elaborated somewhat and basically said that Star Trek is very much a world of its own and has a very specific style and set of rules that all involved have to adhere too. “With Star Trek you do not change a definite article. I've never seen anything as arbitrary or as enforced as that.” However one opportunity did pop up for Smallwood to add the Xindi with some help from fellow a Thespian and Randy Ogelsby. “We created the social morays of the Xindi people, because generally in Science Fiction and particularly in Star Trek the Alien races have a culture and theirs a bible and you know Klingons have language, Klingons have morays and customs and what not and so the actors have a jumping off place.” Smallwood said that much of the social customs of the Xindi were not defined so he and his fellow actors “were creating all of that”. This allowed the actors who played Xindi characters to have a bit more of a say in what they thought their characters would say or do.

Both actors were asked how they felt about Enterprise being cancelled and Smallwood was the first to respond “I'm fond of the people on the show. My sense is in many ways this Franchise was not taken to heart as some of the earlier incarnations were, and that maybe for any number of reasons. It needs a bit of a break and maybe you know in 2 or 3 years whatever, it will come back with a new concept, a fresh idea and you will be hungry for new things.”

Monoson for his part talked about what he had picked up from the more recent audience reaction to Star Trek: Enterprise . “One interesting thing have been hearing from people about this year is that it has been finding a certain cool groove, and it just seems to be finding its voice and Paramount have cancelled it when many thought the shows would run into infinity.”

Tucker Smallwood and Laurence Monoson shared much more, but to get the gist you really had to be there, both were great entertainment and shared a varied number of interesting stories from their careers. Look out for further coverage of this event over the coming days.

I would like to thank Photographer Mark Withall for providing much of the photographic content for this article. For information and booking details for next years SF Ball please click here.

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