INTERVIEW: Jeffrey Combs, Casey Biggs fondly remember their ‘DS9’ days
Image courtesy of Creation Entertainment / Provided from official site.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the highly influential TV series from the 1990s, continues to engage old fans and capture new fans — making this genre series perhaps the most durable and timeless in the 50+ years of Trekdom. Two series regulars on the show were Casey Biggs, playing Cardassian officer Damar, and Jeffrey Combs, playing the Vorta clone Weyoun. They were joined by Avery Brooks, Terry Farrell, René Auberjonois, Cirroc Lofton, Nana Visitor, Michael Dorn, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig and Nicole de Boer.
Combs also played characters on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, and even had a second role on DS9 (the magic of makeup!). Biggs also appeared on Star Trek: Enterprise. In other words, both actors are card-carrying Trekkies who have earned respect among fans.
Recently, Star Trek fans received news that the annual summer convention in Las Vegas was delayed to December, and Creation Entertainment, the con’s producer, also changed the venue. Combs and Biggs are frequent presences at the Vegas con and similar fan events around the world, often singing in the Star Trek Rat Pack with Max Grodénchik, Ethan Phillips and Vaughn Armstrong. It appears likely that the Rat Pack will head to Vegas for the new December dates.
In the meantime, Creation Entertainment has started hosting a slew of virtual experiences in which fans can interact with their favorite genre stars. Biggs and Combs took part in a Q&A this past weekend, and they are gearing up for an exclusive Q&A Wednesday, June 10 at 4 p.m. PST (7 p.m. EST). This event is now sold out.
In anticipation of these virtual experiences, the actors jumped on the phone to talk about DS9 and the future of the Rat Pack. Here’s part II of that conversation (click here for part I) …
On working with Marc Alaimo, who played Gul Dukat on DS9 …
BIGGS: Jeff and I and Marc had a great, great relationship. Marc is a special guy. He’s wildly talented. He thought the name of TV series was The Ducat Show, which is great because it’s all about him when he’s on the screen. He was a very good actor, particularly … if he respected your work.
COMBS: He didn’t have much patience with someone who came, shall we say, unprepared. You had a mark against you, and you were eyed with a sideway glance. Like, come on, we’re here to play on a big field. Don’t do that. If you came, and met him toe to toe and gave as good as you got, you earned his respect. And you were good to go.
On the talent level of the DS9 cast …
BIGGS: The cool thing is most of the actors that were like us, recurring and then the regulars, were classically trained actors. We all sort of come from the same sensibility in terms of what the training had been like. … We all came from the same kind of background.
COMBS: We all came from the theater and working plays for many years, eating peanut butter sandwiches and doing what we love in theater before we ever turned to film and television.
BIGGS: Come on, look at it. You had Avery. You had, God bless him, René Auberjonois, one of the great theater actors around. Armin Shimerman, Andy Robinson, Max Grodénchik, Alaimo, too.
COMBS: Nana Visitor is from the theater. It was a candy store; just take your pick.
On how Combs played Weyoun and dealt with being killed off time and time again …
COMBS: It’s easy because what I said to myself, each one is not different. Each one is not different. Each one is exactly as close as possible as the one that followed him. That’s the chilling aspect. He walks in with everything in place from before. There’s no catching up. There’s no filling in a gap, no synapses. It’s this seamless transition that is pretty daunting, so that’s sort of the way I played it. Some people sort of claim, ‘Oh, you played that one different than that one.’ That’s not true. Maybe he was in a different situation that made him a little more upset, usually when Damar is hitting in the Kanar bottle a little bit. That never pleased me.
On how the character of Weyoun came to be …
COMBS: Well, when they first came to me, I had been recurring as Brunt, and they came to me. … And they said, ‘We really like what you’re doing, and we’re going to have you come back as a character where we can see your face.’ I remember that. Great. That’s great. Another job, but I didn’t hold out much hope. Yeah, right. But it came true, and it was Weyoun, an alien that I did not know what it was. But, hey, it’s a nice episode, and I died at the end. OK, well, that’s OK. It’s a job. I got another one. I still have Brunt. I still can come back with him, but this is nice of them to do this. And they killed me. And I went home. … What I didn’t know is they are sitting there looking at dailies and going, ‘Why did we kill him?’
BIGGS: They liked the character so much, they said, ‘Shit, why did we kill him off?’ But then outer space being outer space, and writers being gods, they say, ‘He can replicate.’
COMBS: We can clone him. It became a running joke. … I saw many actors, you did too Casey, where they go, ‘Shit, they are killing me off.’ I would go, ‘Oh no, they’re killing me off. Oh wait, let me turn the page. Oh, right.’
BIGGS: Weyoun #9 comes back. [laughs]
On how the DS9 set compared to the Enterprise set …
COMBS: The Star Trek franchise is a well-oiled machine, right Case, so there a lot more similarities than there are differences to how they approach it, from the tech side. It’s all a seamless sort of production line that gets everything where it needs to be, and so that’s all very, very familiar. And there were some familiar faces, some crossover, people that used to be on that one and now were on this one. So that’s a bit of a comfort, but every set has its own personality. That doesn’t mean one is bad because one is good. It’s just like going to a different school in your district. It’s still in your district. It’s familiar, but a little different.
BIGGS: I did one episode of, what was it, Enterprise. [laughs]
COMBS: What was it? Enterprise. [laughs]
BIGGS: They said, ‘We’d love you to play this character.’ … They never brought these guys [Illyrian] back again. For a long time, Jeff tell me if I’m wrong, they were trying to find their way with Enterprise.
COMBS: They were trying to find their way. When I first did Shran, they didn’t say to me, ‘These guys will be back.’ They just asked me if I would [help relaunch] the Andorians as a species, and I was thrilled with that. … When they asked me to do Shran the first time, one of my questions was, ‘Does he die?’ I felt lightning would not strike twice. They said, ‘No, he doesn’t die.’ ‘OK, I’ll do it.’
On never finding out the future of a character in advance …
BIGGS: I did a few episodes, and then I got a job in New York at a theater. I told Ira [Steven Behr], and he was all upset. He said, ‘You’re in the next 13 episodes.’ I said, ‘You didn’t tell me that.’ We never think we’re going to work again.
COMBS: They think actors sit at home unemployed.
BIGGS: The cool thing was though they liked Jeff and I so much that they literally flew me back on my days off, which is Monday, and Jeff and I shot all our scenes on Monday and then flew me back to do the play. That was very, very impressive.
On how the Star Trek Rat Pack came to be …
COMBS: Lolita Fatjo had the suggestion. It came out of Creation saying, ‘Listen, above and beyond the Q&A’s and above and beyond photo ops and signing, we’d like for you to come up with something to entertain.’ And so out of that call for something a little more, came the idea of pairing us all up into a little group and singing some of Max’s parody songs. We call him the Al Yankovic of outer space.
BIGGS: He’s brilliant at it, and Jeff has written songs. I’ve written songs, and it’s in our contract they have to give us two cocktails per show to be able to tell jokes and drink and sing. We never know what’s going to come out of our mouths.
COMBS: We never know what we’re going to do. It’s fluid. We have sort of a playlist, but it’s pointless to be rigid about it because what the fans love most is the loose camaraderie and the spontaneity. And we try to give it to them.
BIGGS: We’ve been doing it for 10 years now.
On whether they would be open to reprising their roles on a future Star Trek series …
BIGGS: Jeff may get the call because there’s some fans out there because of that new one with Anson Mount.
COMBS: Strange New Worlds.
BIGGS: The ever-gracious Anson Mount. … What was that doctor’s character?
COMBS: Dr. Boylan or Boyle. [note: it’s Boyce]
BIGGS: The fans out there are saying Jeff should play that part in this new series. Who knows? Put a bug in their ear.
COMBS: I got a little flak for that because I went, ‘Well, what the fans want and what the studios want are not always in convergence here, so the chances of that happening are slim to none. And slim just left town.’ And everybody went, ‘Oh, Jeff, doesn’t want to do it.’ I didn’t say that. I said that it is not likely the way things are.
BIGGS: I think if we got the call … I mean, I don’t think I’d want to be four hours in makeup.
COMBS: I’d be honored and proud to be asked and to come back in. Another offering in the Star Trek world is just something nobody would say no to.
BIGGS: Even [William] Shatner just said, ‘Hey, I’ll come back as Kirk.’
On the future of their convention appearances …
COMBS: We’re contracted to [appear in December in Las Vegas], and I think Casey would feel the same as I do that we actually feel a duty to be there. If it does go forward — and everything is safe, and they’re conscientious of everything — I think it our duty to show up and to reassure the fans that our spirit is with there’s, and we’ll get through this.
BIGGS: And, hey, it may be our last Rat Pack performance ever, who knows.
COMBS: It may be. I just don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know where we go. …
BIGGS: No matter what, for years to come, Star Trek is still going to be a big moneymaker. The fans will show up. They’ll spend money. They want to be part of the franchise.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Jeffrey Combs and Casey Biggs will participate in an exclusive meet-and-greet Wednesday, June 10 at 4 p.m. PST (7 p.m. EST), courtesy of Creation Entertainment. The event is sold out. Click here for more information.
