November 9, 2025 • 61 mins
Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating welcome guest Robert Beltran into the D-Con Chamber this week. Our audience will know him well as the steadfast executive officer of the Starship Voyager on its 7 year expedition home. We take our own trip through his career, traversing that cult classic film "Eating Raoul", his impressive stage oeuvre, and the process of landing the role of Captain Janeway's number one.
Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former and future cast and crew members to celebrities, scientists, and astronauts whose personal and professional journeys have been affected by the franchise, we sit down and dive deep with a new friend, laughing and learning from their stories. Sit back, grab a drink, and join our hosts, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, as we get geeky in The D-Con Chamber.
Let's get social! -
📘 Facebook: The D-Con Chamber
📸 Instagram: @thedconchamber
🐦 Twitter: @thedconchamber
⏰ TikTok: @thedconchamber
🌐 Website: https://thedconchamber.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-d-con-chamber--6181422/support.
Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former and future cast and crew members to celebrities, scientists, and astronauts whose personal and professional journeys have been affected by the franchise, we sit down and dive deep with a new friend, laughing and learning from their stories. Sit back, grab a drink, and join our hosts, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, as we get geeky in The D-Con Chamber.
Let's get social! -
📘 Facebook: The D-Con Chamber
📸 Instagram: @thedconchamber
🐦 Twitter: @thedconchamber
⏰ TikTok: @thedconchamber
🌐 Website: https://thedconchamber.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-d-con-chamber--6181422/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This show has begun since your phasers, the fun you
trip Trip Trip trips in DC, we come. It's the Conchamber.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Trekky's and trekkers. Welcome
back to another episode of the Decon Chamber. I'm your
co host dominic Keating, joined as always by my fellow
chamber pot mister Connor Trenier.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Here.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're super excited to have in the in the Chamber.
Well many of you know him, of course as a
Voyagers first Officer, Commander chakote I saying that seven times
fast in the Turbo Lift, who will helped lead the
crew through seven enviable seasons in the Delta Quadrant. But
(01:06):
Robert's career stretches far beyond Star Trek. He made his
first marketing film with a breakout performance in a wonderful
movie called Eating Raoul, and has since appeared in a
wide range of movies and television projects. And he's also
an accomplished stage actor with a long history of performing
and directing theater, particularly in the works of Shakespeare and
(01:26):
other classic dramatists. He has played Hamlet. Please give us
a big dcon Welcoming Chamber to mister Robert Beltran. Yes,
how about that? I mean, how old you?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Hey, guys, it's great to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's really nice that you can make the time. And
we've been sort of, you know, back and forth on
this for a while and it's really great to have
you on. Finally, how old were you when he played Hamlet?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Too old?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Too old?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You weren't Olivier old, but you were?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Actually Olivier was about forty when he did it, and
I was that was that was my hold.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I was, all right, but did you do it?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I didn't look forty.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
You've always looked pretty young too, probably right, Yeah, But
I'm I'm convinced that now that Hamlet, depending on the
interpretation of the Grave Diggers dialogue.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
That he has with Hamlet, he's either, I'm you can
you can say he was either thirty thirty three or
around there or nineteen eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, I mean, you know, he's a mature student in
many productions as it were, and.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Getting an eighteen year old, nineteen year old actor to
get everything out of Hamlet, it's it's very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Well, as as Dom you've said before, you know, when
they when they look at a young actor, they say,
to test their metal.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Ye, put a crown on.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Put a crown on his head.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Let's say see how he'll do.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, And did you do the Hamlet?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
And I'll die?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I did it at school, but I played Laertes.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I did too.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
My mother Chagrint. She never forgave that teacher that gave
the part to uh high Robert.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
You mad Layer twos to Connor.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
Yeah, I played layer ties and the player King because
they never crossed paths.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
My Hamlet was fifty five.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I was.
Speaker 6 (03:38):
I was a robust twenty four and it was very
clear that in that fight that who would win?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Right. Yeah, he didn't quite make the jump underneath the
yeah oil right now that hurt.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
He had a kane. He had a Keane. I don't
know if that says anything, But.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Did you do that production of Hamlet with the the
I want to say that, not the East La Theater lab.
What was it?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The Actors Gang, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I did it with the Actors Gang A well, I
actually at the Actors Gang Theater. I rented it from them,
and I think I used a couple of actors that
had worked there with them. But it was not a
co production with the actors Gang Theater. Now, I was
getting to the point where in my career I said,
(04:29):
I've got to play hat. I've always wanted to play it, right,
I've got to play Hamlet before I get too old
to do it. So it was ninety seven, during the
hiatus of Voyager, I just got some actor friends together
and we did a pretty.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Much that's quite something, that really is well, let's go
back in time a little bit. You come from Bakersfield,
and you come from a massive family. You've got seven
brothers and two sisters. Yeah, seventh, Yeah, I mean where
do you fall in?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, out of the ten of us, I was number seven,
all right.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
There's lights the seventh son of a seventh son.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Not quite but yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Quiet, but that's always very not Irish folklore. That's fair. Yeah,
it's just so well, I mean, where where do you
Where does a kid growing up in games Bakersfield in
a family of ten get the idea that he might
this is something that he might want to do.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well, you know, you go to the movies, go to
the movies a lot, And I remember every Saturday being
at the to Home theater and watching great movies. And
thinking in the back of my head, I more wanted
to be an athlete. I wanted to be either a
baseball player or a football player. But you start thinking, hmm,
(05:55):
that would be fun. Yeah. One of the first movies
that I really was thinking in the back of my
mind that i'd really like maybe to do that was
From Here to Eternity.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All right, and it was you were born in fifty three,
so you just got those years on us a little bit.
You saw those films in the cinema, yes, yeah, yeah, big.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Big, old fashioned theaters, right, and Montgomery Cliff in that
movie just Blew Me Away. Yeah, So, so various films
after that. I always loved going to two movies and that.
I did theater in junior high school and high school,
a lot of musicals and sang in the choir and
(06:41):
had had a lot of opportunities to perform. And then
when I left high school, I was recruited to go
to play quarterback for Porterville College.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Where's Porterville?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Quarterville? Yeah, I was waiting for that question.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I mean the squirrels, the Quarterville Squirrels.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
It's about fifty sixty miles east northeast of Bakersfield, and
it had a thriving junior college football program and in
fact a very good quarterback school quarterback coach that they had.
(07:31):
Two of their previous quarterbacks have gone on to play
NCAA Division two colleges. But I didn't really want to
go to live and live in Porterville. So I just
I thought, well, I'll take a year off and I
went to junior college. I went to Bakersfield College and
(07:56):
they were doing a production of Romeo, and Juliet thought, wow,
it'd be I'd like to Maybe I can do some
sword fighting. So I auditioned for Tipples, right, and I
got the role. Yeah, so I forgot about I forgot
about going playing football, And as much as I missed it,
(08:18):
I just loved the theater that that much more.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
That's a big Connor story too, the thing.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Yeah, Yeah, I played football in college for a couple
of years and tripped over acting and I'd never done
it before. I had never no experience. But we've told
the story before that Literally I found the theater and
quit football the next day.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was going to be a professional cricketers.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Really, why not, Robert was it was this encouraged by
your family?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You know, you did it in junior high.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And well, my mom and my dad were divorced when
I was really young, so my.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Mom they make a time at the time they were
married then, I mean just saying.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, yeah, you could say that.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
My mother always said that she had a secret desire
to be an actress. And she was a musician. She
she played piano and guitar. Actually, my father was a
pretty good musician too.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Because your brother Louis went on to have real success,
didn't he.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's still he's still playing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, go blass.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
So nobody really encouraged me. Nobody really discouraged me. It
was always thought that I was going to I was
majoring in political science and that was but after a
while that just just became a front for because you know.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
I think political science studies is a front for a
lot of things.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah, I think so. I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So we don't have it in England. So it's one
of those spurious subjects thing. This got Really you can
do that in America. See do you mean there's a
course on the spice girls?
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Amazing? I wouldn't, Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you went to you went to college in Fresno,
didn't you And you did theater. You majeor it in
the theater theater that right.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yes, yes, I I first went to Baksfoel College and
did a lot of theater. It was a very thriving
theater department at Bakersfool College ran It was run by
a guy named Robert Chapman, doctor Robert Chapman, terrific guy.
(10:39):
And then I decided I had to get a BA.
So I heard that Fresno had a president state had
a really great theater department, and I wasn't disappointed at all.
It was one of the top theater departments in the country, surprisingly,
(10:59):
and and not too big because I I had also
checked into the UCLA theater department. It was just humongous.
It's very uh.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Just in numbers, just in the kind of corporate you know.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
So Fresno it was very it was like maybe fifty
to one hundred, I don't remember exactly, but it was
a smaller theater department, so you were able to do
a lot of different things. I had a great time, yeah,
but I didn't have.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
A Did you have a mentor? Because we all it
happens to all of us, you know, dom you talk.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
About that that Resuchem as my guy at school, and.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
William beckbar for me when I was at my undergrad
and we've all there's always someone who gives you sort
of the you know, the yeah positive the wings that
make you want to, you know, dive into this ridiculous business.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Well I mentioned I mentioned doctor Chapman at Bakersfield College.
He took a real interest in me. In fact, when
I went into his office to audition for for Tibolt,
he looked at me and he said, well, why don't
you want to play Romeo. I said, I'm just not interested.
(12:16):
I'd like to do some sword fighting. And he said, okay,
can you give you have ten minutes or five minutes.
I just have to step out. I'll be right back.
And he came back ten minutes later with this beautiful
blonde girl and he said, look, but you like.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The sword fight.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
I know you're only interested in Tibolt, but could you
work with Barbara because she wants to play Juliette. And
I thought maybe you could help her out by playing Romeo.
And I said, yeah, yeah, I can do that. But
the so we worked on our we worked on our scenes,
and we auditioned the next day, and you know, you
(12:58):
know how few people are they they're they're out there
in the audience, and it's very exciting. And I had
never auditioned like that before, but we did. We went
through two scenes, the balcony scene and the bedroom scene,
and I when when it was over, I I I
(13:18):
could not believe what a high I was on. It
was just not only because of Barbara, which is beautiful, beautiful, uh,
but I was because we were going to audition that
next day. I memorized these scenes very easily, and I
(13:39):
was I think I was dreaming these scenes when I
when we showed up for auditions, she was surprised that
I was totally memorized. People were still reading from the
book and so yeah, that that was. That was a
terrific experience. So after that, doctor Chapman he got me,
he got me alone in the theater once and he
(14:02):
said he asked me some questions about my personal life.
And then he said, uh, he said, do a couple
of summersaults. I do some, and I was like okay,
And then he said, climb that rope. And I climbed
the rope and he goes And I never asked him
why he wanted me to do this, but I think
that he saw some kind of that I was a
(14:26):
little contained to contain, too self conscious, and he wanted
me to, you know, break up. But anyway, if I
had a mentor, it was him. He cast me in
a lot of a lot of variety of roles, and
I was I was appreciated him. He was still to
this day one of the top directors I've ever worked with.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Is he still alive? I'm still with us?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Oh no, unfortunately he's been.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
How long were you there? Two years? Three years?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I did, h It was three years because I was working,
so I wasn't alway going to school full time. And
then I went to Yeah, then I transferred to Fresno.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And then what happens after that? You how quickly do
you decide to not go to New York and come
straight to la And.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, my final year at Fresno nineteen seventy nine, I
was in the spring. They started a totally professional shakespeare
company called the California Shakespeare Festival, and it was in Visilia,
(15:35):
about thirty miles from Fresno. They call it the Gateway
to Sequoia, right, Yeah, And the plan was to found
another like another Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's right, I think was it? Andy Robinson was telling
us about this a while back, someone like that Vaselia
has come up before.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Jeff Combs and if Combs, Yeah, yeah, wasn't that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Did that become part of the p C p A
or was that separate?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
That was separate? That was separate a different thing. Yeah. Anyway, So,
so I was a student my my final spring there
I was gonna I was going to graduate. Uh and uh,
these auditions came up for this company and so I
auditioned and I I got chosen, and but they started
(16:31):
rehearsal very very soon after, so I had to quit school.
I had to make a choice. Do I graduate or
do I join the California decision. It wasn't it wasn't
a big decision for me at all. I was like, oh, yeah,
I'm going. I'm going. And so when they when the
(16:53):
lady called me, the one of the producers she called
me and she said she was a British woman, Dominic.
She said, Robert, I've got some bad news and I've
got some good news. And I said, okay, tell me
the bad news. She said, you'd tell me the good news.
(17:14):
She said, we would like you to be in the company,
And I said, what's the bad news? Said we can
only pay you one hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, and you're life.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Really no, I had never made one hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I went through the roof.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I swear to god, I love those early days. But
they only knew it that we did have done it
for nothing, wouldn't we? I mean really, yeah, one hundred
dollars a week.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
But you know I wasn't in the professional company. I
was in the what do you journeyman? I was a journeyman.
That was the first year, and then the second year
I was in the company. And that's why. That's when
I was working with Jeff.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Buying boots and a new leather jacket and all the
stuff actors do when they get was the.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
First year were you were?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You?
Speaker 6 (18:05):
Then non equity your first year, and then you were
equity your second.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Year or yeah, the first year, non equity, second year
I was. I was chosen to do a tour of
scenes from Shakespeare that was advertising the new company there
of Isaiah. So we traveled up and down California, and
then when that was over, we went right into the
season that year.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's great training doing that, isn't it. It really is
fantastic to be in a company like that and understand,
you know, the difference of characters and you know, personalities
and how it all fits together and doing the hard work,
you know, setting it up and striking.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Were you in rep? Were you were you in rep
doing multiple shows at a sort of time and rotation?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Well, no, we were. We were like five actors just
doing scenes from Shakespeare. The one was that the theme
was the Tragedies. When we were doing an evening of
scenes from from the Tragedies, or we were doing an
evening from the from the comedies, scenes from the comedies,
(19:14):
and and that. But in the but I was in
rep with the the regular season. But that was just
we were doing. My first year we did Romeo and
Juliet and Taming of the Shrew, and the second year
we did Hamlet and Midsommer Night's Dream. Very cool.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I mean that's that that training on stage like that,
particularly in the classics. I mean, it lends its hand,
particularly when you come to a show like Star Trek.
I think I think so, yeah, I think it's like
in drama and uh yeah, I think you know, we're
with the three of us here of all, you know
started our we we we we scratched our way on
(19:58):
stage to start with. And I think that that shows
when you come to a piece like a Star Trek show.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Well, I've heard that that the producers on Star Trek
always wanted I always wanted stay. Didn't They trained actors? Yea,
And I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Most of them come to LA and it's not long.
Zoom Set was your first film, wasn't it? Zoomsuit was
was from Broadway, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I'm right and saying yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Well it ran for two years here in LA and
huge hit. I didn't see it in Los Angeles. I
actually saw it in New York and it didn't have
a very long run in New York. But then then
they came back and started filming the guy who wrote it,
I don't know if you've heard, Luis Valdez did La Bamba. Yeah,
(20:58):
a few other few other films. Terrific, terrific. Guy I
was doing a play up at his company was called
Theatro Compecino, and I was doing a play. I had
always wanted to work with him. I saw his touring
company when I was at Bakersfield College and they were incredible,
(21:21):
and so I thought I would really like to work
with him. And I was doing a play and he
was preparing the screenplay for Zootsuit and he asked me
to do a small role. It's a very small role,
but it got me to la And while I was
doing that role filming it, it was like four or
(21:41):
five days in Los Angeles, my agent called me with
an audition at the taper for the taper some play.
I didn't get it, but the casting director said, you know,
I'm also casting a movie called Eating Raoul, and I
think you'd be perfect for the for the lead role.
(22:05):
They had been trying to cast it for a while,
that role of Raoul. So he got me in touch
with the director of Paul Bartel and I read for them,
him and the producers and the writers and got the role.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So you were cheering for it, I'm sure, I mean, yeah,
what did you What did you think.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
When you read the script the first time?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Now, I know that young people, as soon as they
you know, get out there, that you will take anything.
I just rewatched it yesterday. I watched it years and
years and years ago. And it is one very good
and two completely whack a doodle blood emotional.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But for nineteen eighty two, I mean it was a
massive hit in London. If you hadn't seen Eating Raoul
in the community, the you know, the sort of people
I ran with you, you were in idiot, you know
you really were an independent piece of film like that
just was just it was. I mean, it broke so
many barriers and it was it was so out ahead
(23:13):
of its time.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
At the time, there was only you remember the film
Harold and Mad Yeah, well it had the same kind
of Harold and Maud was a very low budget film.
It made a lot of money, right, and a very interesting,
not run of the mill theme and storyline. Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, really early early, very early. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the same thing with Eating Roll except I think
we had even a much smaller.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Budget and it cleaned up, didn't. I mean, how many
films that Paul Bartel made before doing Eating Roun Because
he I noticed he did seventeen movies all told, and
I was like, wow, yeah, well he.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
He had done maybe three or four films before Eating Raoul.
He did a film called Death Race two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Oh yeah, all right, yeah, death right. How was he
financing these films?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I mean, his his own sources, and I think his father.
His father was a wealthy man who helped him out
quite a bit. But Death Race two thousand I had,
I was. I watched it after after working with the
theater Compecino, I was out of work, so I went home, uh,
(24:40):
you know, asked my mom, Mom, can I stay here
for a while? And of course she, you know, she
let me. But my girlfriend and I went to go
went to the drive in theater to see Death Race
two thousand because we heard it was really funny and
it was hilarious. Well, shortly after seeing it, I got
a I got a phone call from Paul Bartel who
(25:05):
who said, you know, he got my number from Eugene Blythe,
the casting director at the top at the Taper. He said, Robert,
I would like for you to read for my film
Eating Roll. And it came out of the blue, and
I said, no, hey, I don't do those kind of films.
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Not interested. He goes, You've always been difficult. We're getting
to that later, mate.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
He said. He said, oh no, no, no, it's a
perfectly legitimate and I said, well, what else have you done?
Is there anything else I might have seen? He goes, well,
you might have seen death rays two thousand. I said,
death rays two thousand. I just saw it the other day. Okay,
I'm in, I'm in. Let me read it.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Let me So that's what happened. Actually, yeah, that's great.
I mean, what a cost to Mary Warnoff? I mean,
was she's kind of royalty? I mean I had to
remind myself who she was. I mean she was there
at the factory in the sixties with uh, you know,
(26:11):
with your man and.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Brilliant She's a brilliant painter dominant. Excuse me, I don't
mean to interest.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Is it brilliant painter? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:21):
And writer, brilliant writer? Yeah? Yeah? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Was it just great fun working with them? It looked
like it was a blast.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
It was the problem for me was that I was
broke and we would shoot. The first time I shot,
it was for four days, and then Paul said, all right, Robert,
well i'll call you when we're ready to shoot again.
Well it was three months before he called me again, right, yeah,
(26:53):
so I would. I came back after that break and
shot about five days, and then we had another small
brig and then I finished it out. So it was
an unusual process. But yes, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, lovely, some lovely performances ed Begley Junior as the
hippie Mark is fantastic. Susan Saga as the Dominatrix was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And who else did? I note? I loved John Paragon,
who played the sex shot owner was just steel steining.
I mean it was great stuff. It was great, Yeah,
I mean really was I mean that must have did you?
I mean, let me ask you this, and I hope
it's not too pointed, but as an Hispanic actor in
(27:44):
nineteen eighty something, I mean, were there a lot of
were you getting a lot of offers? Were you getting?
I mean it was it tricky? Well if you weren't
going to play this?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
So I had it, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I did.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I did eating Raoul and Zoot Soup without an agent.
I didn't have an agent. It wasn't until my friend said,
he asked me, who's your agent? I said, I don't know.
I don't have an agent. Do I need an agent?
And he said, yeah, you need an agent? So why
they explained it? I mean, I was really green, really
really green, and so he took me to his agency.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Huh, I mean as before we came on live. I
mean when you come on the screen on an Eating Rawul.
The minute you arrive in that first scene, it's like, oh, okay,
no disrespect to mister Bartel. But now we've got now
there's an actor on the screen, as it were, God
(28:47):
rest his soul. You know what I mean, you're really
yeah suddenly is you can always tell when someone shows
up there they are ye yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
So I was I talking about anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Agents in the layah.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
So he introduced me to his agent and she, you know,
I went into her office. She was like, yes, I
hear you're you're an actor and she was like, you know, uninterested.
She said, so what do you what do you What
have you done? I said, well, right now I'm my
film Eating Raul is being shown and she goes, you're
you're an eating Roul sign right here right?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And you got that he's seeking missiles, aren't they They
really are the minute they think you're boom.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So uh. You know, as far as being a Hispanic
man in the business, it it was it was interesting
for me because I started working immediately. You know it
was I had. When I got to l A, it
(29:52):
was just a lucky thing up through up to uh
star Trek, I worked.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
A lot and he didn't stop. I mean really yeah,
And so.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I didn't feel like I was I mean, everybody gets
type cast. So I figured I was going to I know,
I was going to be playing Hispanic roles, and that's
okay with me, as long as the good roles. I
don't care. I played American, Indian, I played Greek, I
played Italian. I don't really care as long as they
(30:31):
have some substance to them, right. And so, in fact,
I was I was going to do a film I
was also I was already cast. The director was. It
was a Scott Glenn Lou Diamond Phillips movie, and it
wasn't a big role, but it had a nice through
line and I thought I could do something good with it.
(30:55):
So I went to a costume fitting and then the
costumer said, Robert, the director would like to speak to you.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No, and.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
An assistant came in with it. He said, he said,
here's the new script. So while I was waiting for
the costume, I was flipping through it and I noticed
there was a scene gone that my character was in.
And I called my agent and I said, you got
to get me out of this film. They've changed it
and I'm not going to do it. Why well, you know,
(31:31):
he was shocked. I said, well, they took off the
middle scene here. I don't have a through line anymore.
I'm just it doesn't make any sense. And he said, oh, well,
couldn't you just do it, Robert? I said, no, no,
do it. I hadn't signed anything yet, right, And so
the director called me after my agent called him, said Robert,
(31:53):
come on, come on, yeah, come on, you got to
do the film. He said no, no, I'm not going
to do the film unless you put that scene back.
He goes, no, we don't need the scene, you know.
I said, no, I need the scene that my character.
If I'm going to play this role, I need that
scene because I need a through line. Otherwise I don't
need to do this film. That guy got so pissed
(32:15):
off at me, and I just listened to him and
I said, well, if you put the scene in, I'm
in the film. If you're not, you're not going to
put it in and forget it. Find somebody else.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So bullsy, I mean, I yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Well, you know, I was working a lot, and so
I didn't have to take whatever role came my way,
you know, And so as the Hispanic actor, I know
there are a lot of my friends Latino fellow Latino
actors had a really really hard time during those and
(32:52):
they still do. Yeah, it's it's very It's a there's
a dearth of actor of parts for Latino actors, always
has been. But I was lucky and I got to work.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
But I know that others a lot of them had
a hard time, not so fortunate, a lot of it.
We've talked about this many times. As actors, a lot
the luck factor is extraordinarily important. Those early breakout roles
that just set you apart and get you three rungs
up the ladder, they matter a lot. So we come
to Voyager and you're asked to play a Native American.
(33:31):
What did you think when you Was it an offer
or did you have to audition?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
No, I auditioned, you did? Yeah? Yeah, what was the
character description?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I'm curious, So they're always so interesting. What was the
character description of.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I think it was. I think I did mention something
about spiritual or definitely Native American Marquis. I think the
Marquis angle was was more important in the description of
the character then.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Certainly for the pilot it was, wasn't it. Yeah, that
fight their aspect.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, well, from what I understand, they had been looking
for women to play the chacote role, the first officer role,
and they did some.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Bearing in mind that they wanted Genevieve Bousol to play
the captain as well. They were they were thinking of
putting two ladies together. Wow, yeah, that's quite we were
thinking for Star Trek in nineteen ninet.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Very much yeah, very much so. And so when I auditioned,
Jennet geen Vive Boujad was going to be the captain
and and that's what that's what wanted for me. That's
why I wanted to be because I don't mind her
man what you know, I'd seen her in uh for instance,
Anne of the Thousand Days.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, yeah, just luminescence in that film, I mean.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Just beautiful. So I wanted to work with her, and
I was very very disappointed when when she quit, But
I did. I had three auditions with her at all.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
No, no, So you never so came across the fact
that like ooh, this is disappearing.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
An we we only passed, We only passed. On the set,
I was doing tattoo uh experiments with Mike Michael Westmore
and she was she was shooting already. I think Tim
was shooting with her and Robbie. I passed her one
day and she had this glazed look in her eyes,
(35:37):
and I already I had already heard rumors that maybe
she wasn't going to be around for too long. When
I saw her with those glazed eyes when I passed her,
I thought, well, wow, too bad, too bad. Yeah, but
I saw see everybody everybody criticized this scene that has
been shown of her on the bridge saying fire instead
(36:03):
of like what Patrick Stewart would do or even Kate fire. Yeah,
and I saw her do that. I was, I was
behind the camera watching her do that, and I thought,
that's so brave. That is brave. That's a brave choice.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Everybody made fun of her, But I thought, Okay, anybody
can do fire, but can you? But can you summon
up what she did?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Who directed your pilot? If you don't mind, I forget
who it was? Do you remember who was the German?
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, I mean do you think. I mean no disrespect
to Rick, but do you think he didn't know how
to shoot her, that he couldn't find that the intensity
that she was that you saw even from the back
of her.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I think I think that they anticipated that she would
be that she had a slower rhythm for for TV.
That's than what is necessary to shoot a film.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
To shoot you know, yeah, you're shooting one page a
day on a movie. Yeah, and you're shooting seven and
a half to eight maybe nine. You know, a bad
day of a TV show and it's it's it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
That's what I think. I think that, and I think
that her choices were so unusual that they thought this,
this may not work, you know. I think they wanted
they wanted that kind of I don't want to say stereotypical,
because Kate ended up being a very good captain, but
(37:50):
they would she Jean Vieve would have brought something totally news,
totally original, unique.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Maybe she just needed it sort of an get get
warmed up. But I think if if you're not used
to that workload and it becomes a damic clean sword,
you know, hanging over your head every day, that can
I go through the day.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Was a period of time when so she was was
clear she wasn't going to work out to getting Kate.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It must have been a strange. You know, you're on
a series.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Now, you're on a thing that you're thinking is going
to go for seven years, and you know, you've got
this real crisis that occurs, and and what was the
what was the energy around that on on set?
Speaker 4 (38:37):
And well, we we didn't really know each other, you know,
I didn't know any of the actors, uh, the regular actors,
and so it was it was very off putting. I
think I think that we stopped shooting for at the
most maybe seven days until it brought in the new
(38:59):
captain and then and then Kate came along and everything
gelled after that pretty pretty fast. But yeah, it's just
it just seemed I was just like, you throw up
your hands and go, what come on? Can't we just
(39:19):
do a series and get on with it? But uh,
you know, so it was very unusual for sure, But
none of us really knew each other that that well.
I knew of some of the actors like Piccardo Roxanne
I knew of. But yeah, it was it was as
(39:40):
a cost.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Did you was there a good cohesions right away just
as a cost.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Uh, yeah, I think so. And it was verified by
a lot of the crew members who had also worked
on Deep Space nine and and Next Generation. Several of
them up to me and said, man, you guys, it's
like you guys have been around together for years.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, they said that to us everybody.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, and we all hated each other, did you really No.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
No, we didn't know. We well, we were Actually was
very good for.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
The first of all the casts. You know, you had
the most disruptions. You had, you had one, you lost
a cast member, and then you know, Jerry coming.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
It was was a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah, and so you know, you guys.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Had some disruption seven days there wasn't there seven seven
of nine days?
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, that was that's right. Losing Jennifer was yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
God bless that girl. I mean, she was so talented
and so lovely and it's just very very talented. It
can go mentally sues, man. It's it's like it's just.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
A television that pieces is not for everybody. You know,
some people don't.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, I'm not gonna. I mean, it didn't take me
too long to figure out that they didn't want much
input from the cast and you're working for the man.
Shut up and go home, babe, and do the best
you can. Now, you didn't sit that, you didn't lie
down and take it easy, did you? I mean, did you?
(41:25):
What didn't you? I've heard I heard stories, Robert so well,
just that you were not difficult, but you you had interpretations,
You had ideas that they weren't you know, they weren't
always Uh you know, I'm keen to hear about.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Well, actually that's not true. I heard to ever called
the right. I only called Jerry Taylor once with a
suggestion that she thought was good, and she incorporated it.
I called uh David Uh forgot his name, David? Yeah,
(42:09):
I called him once before this uh Chacote centered episode
that he was going to direct, and he lied to me.
I showed up on the set and he didn't do
what he said he was going to do, and I
was like, oh boy, it was that.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Remember it was the episode.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Called Maneuvers, and it was where Sessca takes off and
I go looking for her and the the bad guys
what do they call the the guys with the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
That wasn't.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
They capture me and uh, they put me in this
chair and they beat me up. Right, Well, my suggestion
to David Lettison was, how about if we get about
eight or ten or twelve ks on guys, You're going
to have extras, right, and he goes, oh, yeah, we're
gonna have extras. Okay, So what if instead of being
seated on this chair and slapped around, what if ten
(43:11):
or twelve ka's and are just beating the shit out
of me? Mm hmm, I said, wouldn't that be wouldn't
that be really amazing? They throw me to one guy,
throw me to another guy, Dick, I'm on the floor.
That now much more? How much more exciting than just
sitting in the chair, you know? Just he said, yeah, yeah,
(43:32):
that sounds good. Well the chair was waiting for me.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, they were the line producer in it went yeah,
the chair is cheaper.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah exactly, so another's sitting right there.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, probably at.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Coordinator would have been needed to But anyway, the truth is,
I hardly ever, I hardly ever called the producers. I
avoided them.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
If I called them, well, I mean, okay, and I'll
say it again, I mean, were you ultimately disgruntled by
the part you've got to fill in that show? And
that they underused you or under Let me.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Tell you how all that got started. I it's very short.
You know, when you go to these conventions, you have
a full audience, aren't there, and you want to be entertaining,
right right, Yeah, my lope, my battery is getting a load.
Let me let me change.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yeah, I've said some ship to mate.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Yeah. So so you're entertaining them, and you're saying stuff
and you're being uh irreverent about the show and all
that stuff, and they're laughing and all that stuff. And
so I said some funny stuff about buttons just okay,
you guys. Yeah, I said some stuff about you know,
(44:56):
the writing, especially which which was I truly believe was
not good after Jerry Taylor and Michael Pillar left. But
it was fun and games. I didn't really care, you
know what. I loved my Days Off. So I loved it.
When I had an episode and I just had two
(45:16):
or three scenes, I didn't complain about that at all.
I loved it. So it got around that I hated
Voyager and that it was all and it was all joking.
That of course fans some some don't know how to
take it. I don't know how to don't know, Irony,
you know, so that's really how it happened. And I
(45:41):
loved I loved working on the show. I loved the
cast and the crew. The writing was not not something
that I was particularly impressed.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
With, and.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
I figured at the time I didn't care if they
fired me. I no, I didn't think they would. And
I don't think my criticisms were so outrageous. My criticism
of the writing was just every episode with seven and
nine and and the captain is exactly the same. You
(46:18):
will do this, No, I won't you will.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
No, I won't.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
You will.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
No. I'll tell you why I won't.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
I mean dreams of dialogue of the same thing over.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And over and oh I know, but I mean we've
I mean, God knows. They were already in the fifteenth
year of a variation of a theme by the time,
you know, that's right, I mean, God knows, And that's
why you did seven years and we only did force
I suck it up, bitch.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
Yeah, no, I totally get it. But at the same time,
you know, it gets it gets a little boring on
the bridge.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
As you guys know, they can be long days.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
Yeah, and when they finally get to you in the
thirteenth hour of the evening and you say, twenty one
of the enemy ships approaching.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, it's a long day.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
I mean we're all human, you know, I mean look
we we we look. Yeah, long days are long days.
And sometimes people get you know, a little hot under
the collar or spark or spike you whatever you want
to call it. But you know, I mean to run
to run seven years on something. Granted, you're going to
have great swaths of time where you're like, man, I'm
(47:42):
getting read what do I here?
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Judge Judies on very important case on Judge Judy. I'll
be out in a minute.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
Well, you know, I always always had plenty of books
to read in my trailer, and I learned how to compose.
I was learning how to compose. Yeah, I lovely.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
So I mean getting back to your brother, I mean
he's worked with some incredible people. I noticed Tito Puente
and Smokey Romins and Stevie Wonder who's that Cuban percussionist,
really famous black dude. I can't remember his name now,
but he's really worked with some greats. Is he still
(48:27):
doing Is he still with us?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
And still oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's still playing. Still
very busy. Yeah, yeah, he's had he's had a great career.
Still play, I don't. I don't. I play a little piano.
I play a little guitar. I learned how to play
guitar so that I could take out the easy song
books of the sixteen right.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But you learn how to compose, you can you read music?
I take it then, and.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
Yeah, I know how to compose. I mean a certain style.
I wanted to learn how to compose for four part
chorus because I sang in choirs from fourth grade all
the way through my second year in college, and I
loved I loved music, classical Mozart and Beethoven and Bach especially,
(49:15):
so I wanted to learn how to do that, and
I taught myself. I got all the material that I
threw well done. Some of it's most of it I
wouldn't let anybody see. But there's maybe four or five
pieces that I wouldn't mind.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
What are they written for? They've written for guitar or piano, or.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
They were written for four part chorus, soprano, alto, tenor
and bass.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I do you still sing with ships and giggles? And
I do.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
I'm I always try to keep my voice in shape
and in case something happens or you know, I'm drunk
at a bar and karaoke is going on.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yes, you should come. Next time you're at a convention.
We're all there together because you know color and I
host the karaoke night.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Dude, You've got to come around. Uh. Yeah, we're sick
of Bobby Beltran. Not Bobby, but Bobby doctor the doctor.
He he'll always, you know, come and get his skirts on.
So I'm yeah, you show up. We do it usually
(50:29):
in Vegas. It's usually on the Thursday night. I think
I want to say, but next.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Time you haven't seen me. Then that's why you haven't
seen me, because I come in on Friday and do
the do everything I need to do Saturday, and then
then I fly out on Saturday.
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
I don't like Vegas, but but maybe if you guys
going to do it, I'll come in.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I mean, that's an opportunity. You've got to come and sing.
We'd love to hear that. Anything in the works are you?
Are you fielding anything in the moment or no? No?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Well that makes three of us.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
It's it's a really bad bad right now, is it?
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
It is.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
So I'm no older than you guys. I'm retired. I'm
seventy one years old.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
And daughter an how is your daughter? It's your teenager
now she's a freshman in.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
High school fourteen. Yeah. So I'm enjoying my my retirement
and if something comes up that I.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (51:39):
I like the fact that you can now audition on
your from your phone, right instead of driving the Santamonia.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
God, it's a double ledged sword.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
I will see that.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, the drive was a bitch, but being in the
room to impress was always like, yeah, yes you do.
Speaker 6 (51:59):
I ever won Scott a role where I was not
given a note And the problem with putting it on
your camera phone is that you don't get a note notes.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
That's the hard part I get.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I get my my now wife Sarah to just go
off screen. I wonder could you could you try and
do it better? Do you know, Judy Dench, But you
know my wife.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
Is German, so she's doing the offscreen voices and German accents.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Like a proper casting director. That's brilliant. I didn't know
that your wife was German.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
That's Robert.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
Where was the children.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Have you learned to speak any.
Speaker 6 (52:50):
No?
Speaker 4 (52:50):
I don't, I really don't. I learned all the German
that I was going to learn from Hogan's heroes. And we're.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah, it shouldn't make we shouldn't make this too this,
it's to this, it's over.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I always asking them to
help me, but they're like, oh, dad, I just forget
about it. We all speak English.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Like English, it's easier.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
She what about what about your daughter? Does she speak German?
Is your wife interested in her learning knowing German?
Speaker 4 (53:23):
My my daughter is fluent in German.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
See god blass, that's great. It's lovely to speak another language.
I got French and then it went away and it's
never come back. Really but yeah, it's it's a beautiful thing.
I think. Good for the mind too, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 6 (53:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
What do you do with your days? Then? I mean,
I mean, well, I'm writing.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
A play right now. I've been writing a play for
over two years now. It's a it's about the Spanish Conquest, not.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
About an English person.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Got a lot, you know, but the theater. One of
the things that bothers me about the theater is that
it's very segregated. You have the white theater over here,
in the Hispanic theater over here, black theater over here
in the age. And I don't believe in that crap.
I really, I think we should all work together and nobody,
anybody can play any role. I remember seeing a black
(54:21):
actor in London playing Hamlet and he was so good
you forgot Adrian Lester.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
I bet you was it Adrian.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
I can't remember the name, he's so good. I bet
it was his before he also played Hotspur. Yeah, and
he's so terrific that you just forget about it, you know.
And I believe that's what theater should be. I don't
believe in this segregation bullshit. So when when my play
is produced, I am not going to I'm going to
(54:54):
open it up, you know. And so I believe it.
I believe in it.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
What you're saying is there's that there's a chance.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
There's no white gods in this play Dom. He's trying
to no white gods in it?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
What about a princess? I'll give you my bloody So
you're right, you write every day? Or do you do?
You try and write every day?
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I try. It's a huge subject.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Right, you know, A huge. Do you have a title?
Do you have a working title?
Speaker 4 (55:33):
The Hearts of Men? Nice? Title the Hearts of Men?
Speaker 2 (55:38):
And it's a period piece, you say, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
Think I can do it with fifteen actors. Two Cortez
Cortez play being played by one actor and Montezuma played
by one actor, and then all the other actors have
played several right, Uh, yeah, I mean it's a huge,
a huge undertaking. But I'm almost finished. I'm very very
(56:05):
close to being finished with it.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
And which you need people for a read I would
be up for that, you know you need to hear.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
Yeah, sure, that's coming up very soon. Actually yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
And are you going to do this through the theater
company you've worked with the East l A No, No,
that was a that was a.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Theater company that I founded with a couple of other guys.
This will be done at the LA Theater Center, the
new L A L Theater Center. Nice. At least they
said they're interested in, very interested in doing it there.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (56:44):
I've worked with them before.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
So it's been lovely chatting with you, Perl and uh
I you guys, I've always enjoyed you so much. Roberts
and uh and it really is. It's it's nice to
spend some quality time with you.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
And I love talking to you know, great actors and
peers that are great actors, and so I've really enjoyed it.
You know, we still love the theater, right, I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
Why not at all? I mean, I I go along
and uh it's you know, it's it's when it's in
your blood and it's and it's a calling, it just
never goes away, you know, yeah, pretty much, and bits
in this sort of you know, grows with.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
I've always I've always believed that I'm I'm best on stage.
That's that's always just my take on my own.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I thought you were going to say something else then,
that I'm just the best.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Wait, let me work with this guy.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
What he really meant was.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
You had to work with Dominic for four years. Uh No,
I agree with Connor that the theater was why I
became an actor, and the other stuff just happened and
it pays more. Yeah, it doesn't satisfy as much.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
No, And I can understand, getting back briefly before we
part ways, that you know, seven years is a long
time to be on a show where you got to
say that again, And I don't know. It's a double
edged sword, isn't it. I mean, look, it all afforded
us a house, a car that you'd never done before,
(58:24):
you know, you know, eating out. I mean I remember,
I remember standing in Gelson's which used to be the
Mayfair Market, having got that job, standing at the produce
department and thinking to myself, I'm never gonna have to
worry about a late fee from video hot ever again, true.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
I don't. I don't. I am not sorry about the
seven years or any of my television or film work.
I I do have to say that after the third
year on Voyager, I was like, oh four more years.
I don't know if I can take it until I
got the paycheck.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, you know, yeah, that that helps to burn yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
And the occasional good scene.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yes, honestly that and that goes a long way. When
you do get to do a good scene with another
good actor, you both pack yourself and it's four in
the morning and you pack yourself on the back and
you've been there twelve fifteen hours, and you go, we
did that. Yeah, that's personal acting. Yeah, no kidding well
and absolutely joy mate, push you all the best and
(59:34):
we can't wait to see him in person soon.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
Play what's that Connor?
Speaker 3 (59:40):
It's been a minute since.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
I know.
Speaker 4 (59:42):
I haven't seen you at any of the conventions recently anyway, but.
Speaker 2 (59:47):
I have to bump into Robert on the plane coming
home from Vegas just now, and it was just a
happenstance that. Oh no, yeah, so well, listen all the best.
Let us know. If you want to do a read
through of the play, i'd be I'm more than happy
to come come around.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Thank you, thank you, I will take I will take
you up on that. And when I finished the play,
if you'd like to read it, I'd like to.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I would love to do that too. Yeah, congratulations. I mean,
it's not the mean feat sitting down every day, that
the discipline it takes and the bravery to sit down,
and actually.
Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
It's yeah, a totally different discipline. And uh it's long
hours and not always good for the legs.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
But no, indeed, nothing much is after sixty film there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Great, yeah you guys, Okay, thanks you shoot it very much,
just about
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
It.
This show has begun since your phasers, the fun you
trip Trip Trip trips in DC, we come. It's the Conchamber.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Trekky's and trekkers. Welcome
back to another episode of the Decon Chamber. I'm your
co host dominic Keating, joined as always by my fellow
chamber pot mister Connor Trenier.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Here.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're super excited to have in the in the Chamber.
Well many of you know him, of course as a
Voyagers first Officer, Commander chakote I saying that seven times
fast in the Turbo Lift, who will helped lead the
crew through seven enviable seasons in the Delta Quadrant. But
(01:06):
Robert's career stretches far beyond Star Trek. He made his
first marketing film with a breakout performance in a wonderful
movie called Eating Raoul, and has since appeared in a
wide range of movies and television projects. And he's also
an accomplished stage actor with a long history of performing
and directing theater, particularly in the works of Shakespeare and
(01:26):
other classic dramatists. He has played Hamlet. Please give us
a big dcon Welcoming Chamber to mister Robert Beltran. Yes,
how about that? I mean, how old you?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Hey, guys, it's great to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's really nice that you can make the time. And
we've been sort of, you know, back and forth on
this for a while and it's really great to have
you on. Finally, how old were you when he played Hamlet?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Too old?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Too old?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You weren't Olivier old, but you were?
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Actually Olivier was about forty when he did it, and
I was that was that was my hold.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I was, all right, but did you do it?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I didn't look forty.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
You've always looked pretty young too, probably right, Yeah, But
I'm I'm convinced that now that Hamlet, depending on the
interpretation of the Grave Diggers dialogue.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
That he has with Hamlet, he's either, I'm you can
you can say he was either thirty thirty three or
around there or nineteen eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, I mean, you know, he's a mature student in
many productions as it were, and.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Getting an eighteen year old, nineteen year old actor to
get everything out of Hamlet, it's it's very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's not easy.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Well, as as Dom you've said before, you know, when
they when they look at a young actor, they say,
to test their metal.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Ye, put a crown on.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Put a crown on his head.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Let's say see how he'll do.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, And did you do the Hamlet?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
And I'll die?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I did it at school, but I played Laertes.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I did too.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
My mother Chagrint. She never forgave that teacher that gave
the part to uh high Robert.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
You mad Layer twos to Connor.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
Yeah, I played layer ties and the player King because
they never crossed paths.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
My Hamlet was fifty five.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I was.
Speaker 6 (03:38):
I was a robust twenty four and it was very
clear that in that fight that who would win?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Right. Yeah, he didn't quite make the jump underneath the
yeah oil right now that hurt.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
He had a kane. He had a Keane. I don't
know if that says anything, But.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Did you do that production of Hamlet with the the
I want to say that, not the East La Theater lab.
What was it?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The Actors Gang, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I did it with the Actors Gang A well, I
actually at the Actors Gang Theater. I rented it from them,
and I think I used a couple of actors that
had worked there with them. But it was not a
co production with the actors Gang Theater. Now, I was
getting to the point where in my career I said,
(04:29):
I've got to play hat. I've always wanted to play it, right,
I've got to play Hamlet before I get too old
to do it. So it was ninety seven, during the
hiatus of Voyager, I just got some actor friends together
and we did a pretty.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Much that's quite something, that really is well, let's go
back in time a little bit. You come from Bakersfield,
and you come from a massive family. You've got seven
brothers and two sisters. Yeah, seventh, Yeah, I mean where
do you fall in?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, out of the ten of us, I was number seven,
all right.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
There's lights the seventh son of a seventh son.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Not quite but yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Quiet, but that's always very not Irish folklore. That's fair. Yeah,
it's just so well, I mean, where where do you
Where does a kid growing up in games Bakersfield in
a family of ten get the idea that he might
this is something that he might want to do.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well, you know, you go to the movies, go to
the movies a lot, And I remember every Saturday being
at the to Home theater and watching great movies. And
thinking in the back of my head, I more wanted
to be an athlete. I wanted to be either a
baseball player or a football player. But you start thinking, hmm,
(05:55):
that would be fun. Yeah. One of the first movies
that I really was thinking in the back of my
mind that i'd really like maybe to do that was
From Here to Eternity.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All right, and it was you were born in fifty three,
so you just got those years on us a little bit.
You saw those films in the cinema, yes, yeah, yeah, big.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Big, old fashioned theaters, right, and Montgomery Cliff in that
movie just Blew Me Away. Yeah, So, so various films
after that. I always loved going to two movies and that.
I did theater in junior high school and high school,
a lot of musicals and sang in the choir and
(06:41):
had had a lot of opportunities to perform. And then
when I left high school, I was recruited to go
to play quarterback for Porterville College.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Where's Porterville?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Quarterville? Yeah, I was waiting for that question.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I mean the squirrels, the Quarterville Squirrels.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
It's about fifty sixty miles east northeast of Bakersfield, and
it had a thriving junior college football program and in
fact a very good quarterback school quarterback coach that they had.
(07:31):
Two of their previous quarterbacks have gone on to play
NCAA Division two colleges. But I didn't really want to
go to live and live in Porterville. So I just
I thought, well, I'll take a year off and I
went to junior college. I went to Bakersfield College and
(07:56):
they were doing a production of Romeo, and Juliet thought, wow,
it'd be I'd like to Maybe I can do some
sword fighting. So I auditioned for Tipples, right, and I
got the role. Yeah, so I forgot about I forgot
about going playing football, And as much as I missed it,
(08:18):
I just loved the theater that that much more.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
That's a big Connor story too, the thing.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Yeah, Yeah, I played football in college for a couple
of years and tripped over acting and I'd never done
it before. I had never no experience. But we've told
the story before that Literally I found the theater and
quit football the next day.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was going to be a professional cricketers.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Really, why not, Robert was it was this encouraged by
your family?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
You know, you did it in junior high.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And well, my mom and my dad were divorced when
I was really young, so my.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Mom they make a time at the time they were
married then, I mean just saying.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, yeah, you could say that.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
My mother always said that she had a secret desire
to be an actress. And she was a musician. She
she played piano and guitar. Actually, my father was a
pretty good musician too.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Because your brother Louis went on to have real success,
didn't he.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's still he's still playing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, go blass.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
So nobody really encouraged me. Nobody really discouraged me. It
was always thought that I was going to I was
majoring in political science and that was but after a
while that just just became a front for because you know.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
I think political science studies is a front for a
lot of things.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah, I think so. I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So we don't have it in England. So it's one
of those spurious subjects thing. This got Really you can
do that in America. See do you mean there's a
course on the spice girls?
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Amazing? I wouldn't, Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you went to you went to college in Fresno,
didn't you And you did theater. You majeor it in
the theater theater that right.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yes, yes, I I first went to Baksfoel College and
did a lot of theater. It was a very thriving
theater department at Bakersfool College ran It was run by
a guy named Robert Chapman, doctor Robert Chapman, terrific guy.
(10:39):
And then I decided I had to get a BA.
So I heard that Fresno had a president state had
a really great theater department, and I wasn't disappointed at all.
It was one of the top theater departments in the country, surprisingly,
(10:59):
and and not too big because I I had also
checked into the UCLA theater department. It was just humongous.
It's very uh.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Just in numbers, just in the kind of corporate you know.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
So Fresno it was very it was like maybe fifty
to one hundred, I don't remember exactly, but it was
a smaller theater department, so you were able to do
a lot of different things. I had a great time, yeah,
but I didn't have.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
A Did you have a mentor? Because we all it
happens to all of us, you know, dom you talk.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
About that that Resuchem as my guy at school, and.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
William beckbar for me when I was at my undergrad
and we've all there's always someone who gives you sort
of the you know, the yeah positive the wings that
make you want to, you know, dive into this ridiculous business.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Well I mentioned I mentioned doctor Chapman at Bakersfield College.
He took a real interest in me. In fact, when
I went into his office to audition for for Tibolt,
he looked at me and he said, well, why don't
you want to play Romeo. I said, I'm just not interested.
(12:16):
I'd like to do some sword fighting. And he said, okay,
can you give you have ten minutes or five minutes.
I just have to step out. I'll be right back.
And he came back ten minutes later with this beautiful
blonde girl and he said, look, but you like.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The sword fight.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
I know you're only interested in Tibolt, but could you
work with Barbara because she wants to play Juliette. And
I thought maybe you could help her out by playing Romeo.
And I said, yeah, yeah, I can do that. But
the so we worked on our we worked on our scenes,
and we auditioned the next day, and you know, you
(12:58):
know how few people are they they're they're out there
in the audience, and it's very exciting. And I had
never auditioned like that before, but we did. We went
through two scenes, the balcony scene and the bedroom scene,
and I when when it was over, I I I
(13:18):
could not believe what a high I was on. It
was just not only because of Barbara, which is beautiful, beautiful, uh,
but I was because we were going to audition that
next day. I memorized these scenes very easily, and I
(13:39):
was I think I was dreaming these scenes when I
when we showed up for auditions, she was surprised that
I was totally memorized. People were still reading from the
book and so yeah, that that was. That was a
terrific experience. So after that, doctor Chapman he got me,
he got me alone in the theater once and he
(14:02):
said he asked me some questions about my personal life.
And then he said, uh, he said, do a couple
of summersaults. I do some, and I was like okay,
And then he said, climb that rope. And I climbed
the rope and he goes And I never asked him
why he wanted me to do this, but I think
that he saw some kind of that I was a
(14:26):
little contained to contain, too self conscious, and he wanted
me to, you know, break up. But anyway, if I
had a mentor, it was him. He cast me in
a lot of a lot of variety of roles, and
I was I was appreciated him. He was still to
this day one of the top directors I've ever worked with.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Is he still alive? I'm still with us?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Oh no, unfortunately he's been.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
How long were you there? Two years? Three years?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
I did, h It was three years because I was working,
so I wasn't alway going to school full time. And
then I went to Yeah, then I transferred to Fresno.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And then what happens after that? You how quickly do
you decide to not go to New York and come
straight to la And.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, my final year at Fresno nineteen seventy nine, I
was in the spring. They started a totally professional shakespeare
company called the California Shakespeare Festival, and it was in Visilia,
(15:35):
about thirty miles from Fresno. They call it the Gateway
to Sequoia, right, Yeah, And the plan was to found
another like another Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's right, I think was it? Andy Robinson was telling
us about this a while back, someone like that Vaselia
has come up before.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Jeff Combs and if Combs, Yeah, yeah, wasn't that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Did that become part of the p C p A
or was that separate?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
That was separate? That was separate a different thing. Yeah. Anyway, So,
so I was a student my my final spring there
I was gonna I was going to graduate. Uh and uh,
these auditions came up for this company and so I
auditioned and I I got chosen, and but they started
(16:31):
rehearsal very very soon after, so I had to quit school.
I had to make a choice. Do I graduate or
do I join the California decision. It wasn't it wasn't
a big decision for me at all. I was like, oh, yeah,
I'm going. I'm going. And so when they when the
(16:53):
lady called me, the one of the producers she called
me and she said she was a British woman, Dominic.
She said, Robert, I've got some bad news and I've
got some good news. And I said, okay, tell me
the bad news. She said, you'd tell me the good news.
(17:14):
She said, we would like you to be in the company,
And I said, what's the bad news? Said we can
only pay you one hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, and you're life.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Really no, I had never made one hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I went through the roof.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I swear to god, I love those early days. But
they only knew it that we did have done it
for nothing, wouldn't we? I mean really, yeah, one hundred
dollars a week.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
But you know I wasn't in the professional company. I
was in the what do you journeyman? I was a journeyman.
That was the first year, and then the second year
I was in the company. And that's why. That's when
I was working with Jeff.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Buying boots and a new leather jacket and all the
stuff actors do when they get was the.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
First year were you were?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You?
Speaker 6 (18:05):
Then non equity your first year, and then you were
equity your second.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Year or yeah, the first year, non equity, second year
I was. I was chosen to do a tour of
scenes from Shakespeare that was advertising the new company there
of Isaiah. So we traveled up and down California, and
then when that was over, we went right into the
season that year.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's great training doing that, isn't it. It really is
fantastic to be in a company like that and understand,
you know, the difference of characters and you know, personalities
and how it all fits together and doing the hard work,
you know, setting it up and striking.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Were you in rep? Were you were you in rep
doing multiple shows at a sort of time and rotation?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
Well, no, we were. We were like five actors just
doing scenes from Shakespeare. The one was that the theme
was the Tragedies. When we were doing an evening of
scenes from from the Tragedies, or we were doing an
evening from the from the comedies, scenes from the comedies,
(19:14):
and and that. But in the but I was in
rep with the the regular season. But that was just
we were doing. My first year we did Romeo and
Juliet and Taming of the Shrew, and the second year
we did Hamlet and Midsommer Night's Dream. Very cool.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I mean that's that that training on stage like that,
particularly in the classics. I mean, it lends its hand,
particularly when you come to a show like Star Trek.
I think I think so, yeah, I think it's like
in drama and uh yeah, I think you know, we're
with the three of us here of all, you know
started our we we we we scratched our way on
(19:58):
stage to start with. And I think that that shows
when you come to a piece like a Star Trek show.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Well, I've heard that that the producers on Star Trek
always wanted I always wanted stay. Didn't They trained actors? Yea,
And I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Most of them come to LA and it's not long.
Zoom Set was your first film, wasn't it? Zoomsuit was
was from Broadway, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I'm right and saying yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Well it ran for two years here in LA and
huge hit. I didn't see it in Los Angeles. I
actually saw it in New York and it didn't have
a very long run in New York. But then then
they came back and started filming the guy who wrote it,
I don't know if you've heard, Luis Valdez did La Bamba. Yeah,
(20:58):
a few other few other films. Terrific, terrific. Guy I
was doing a play up at his company was called
Theatro Compecino, and I was doing a play. I had
always wanted to work with him. I saw his touring
company when I was at Bakersfield College and they were incredible,
(21:21):
and so I thought I would really like to work
with him. And I was doing a play and he
was preparing the screenplay for Zootsuit and he asked me
to do a small role. It's a very small role,
but it got me to la And while I was
doing that role filming it, it was like four or
(21:41):
five days in Los Angeles, my agent called me with
an audition at the taper for the taper some play.
I didn't get it, but the casting director said, you know,
I'm also casting a movie called Eating Raoul, and I
think you'd be perfect for the for the lead role.
(22:05):
They had been trying to cast it for a while,
that role of Raoul. So he got me in touch
with the director of Paul Bartel and I read for them,
him and the producers and the writers and got the role.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So you were cheering for it, I'm sure, I mean, yeah,
what did you What did you think.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
When you read the script the first time?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Now, I know that young people, as soon as they
you know, get out there, that you will take anything.
I just rewatched it yesterday. I watched it years and
years and years ago. And it is one very good
and two completely whack a doodle blood emotional.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But for nineteen eighty two, I mean it was a
massive hit in London. If you hadn't seen Eating Raoul
in the community, the you know, the sort of people
I ran with you, you were in idiot, you know
you really were an independent piece of film like that
just was just it was. I mean, it broke so
many barriers and it was it was so out ahead
(23:13):
of its time.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
At the time, there was only you remember the film
Harold and Mad Yeah, well it had the same kind
of Harold and Maud was a very low budget film.
It made a lot of money, right, and a very interesting,
not run of the mill theme and storyline. Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, really early early, very early. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the same thing with Eating Roll except I think
we had even a much smaller.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Budget and it cleaned up, didn't. I mean, how many
films that Paul Bartel made before doing Eating Roun Because
he I noticed he did seventeen movies all told, and
I was like, wow, yeah, well he.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
He had done maybe three or four films before Eating Raoul.
He did a film called Death Race two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Oh yeah, all right, yeah, death right. How was he
financing these films?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I mean, his his own sources, and I think his father.
His father was a wealthy man who helped him out
quite a bit. But Death Race two thousand I had,
I was. I watched it after after working with the
theater Compecino, I was out of work, so I went home, uh,
(24:40):
you know, asked my mom, Mom, can I stay here
for a while? And of course she, you know, she
let me. But my girlfriend and I went to go
went to the drive in theater to see Death Race
two thousand because we heard it was really funny and
it was hilarious. Well, shortly after seeing it, I got
a I got a phone call from Paul Bartel who
(25:05):
who said, you know, he got my number from Eugene Blythe,
the casting director at the top at the Taper. He said, Robert,
I would like for you to read for my film
Eating Roll. And it came out of the blue, and
I said, no, hey, I don't do those kind of films.
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Not interested. He goes, You've always been difficult. We're getting
to that later, mate.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
He said. He said, oh no, no, no, it's a
perfectly legitimate and I said, well, what else have you done?
Is there anything else I might have seen? He goes, well,
you might have seen death rays two thousand. I said,
death rays two thousand. I just saw it the other day. Okay,
I'm in, I'm in. Let me read it.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Let me So that's what happened. Actually, yeah, that's great.
I mean, what a cost to Mary Warnoff? I mean,
was she's kind of royalty? I mean I had to
remind myself who she was. I mean she was there
at the factory in the sixties with uh, you know,
(26:11):
with your man and.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Brilliant She's a brilliant painter dominant. Excuse me, I don't
mean to interest.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Is it brilliant painter? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:21):
And writer, brilliant writer? Yeah? Yeah? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Was it just great fun working with them? It looked
like it was a blast.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
It was the problem for me was that I was
broke and we would shoot. The first time I shot,
it was for four days, and then Paul said, all right, Robert,
well i'll call you when we're ready to shoot again.
Well it was three months before he called me again, right, yeah,
(26:53):
so I would. I came back after that break and
shot about five days, and then we had another small
brig and then I finished it out. So it was
an unusual process. But yes, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, lovely, some lovely performances ed Begley Junior as the
hippie Mark is fantastic. Susan Saga as the Dominatrix was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And who else did? I note? I loved John Paragon,
who played the sex shot owner was just steel steining.
I mean it was great stuff. It was great, Yeah,
I mean really was I mean that must have did you?
I mean, let me ask you this, and I hope
it's not too pointed, but as an Hispanic actor in
(27:44):
nineteen eighty something, I mean, were there a lot of
were you getting a lot of offers? Were you getting?
I mean it was it tricky? Well if you weren't
going to play this?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
So I had it, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I did.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I did eating Raoul and Zoot Soup without an agent.
I didn't have an agent. It wasn't until my friend said,
he asked me, who's your agent? I said, I don't know.
I don't have an agent. Do I need an agent?
And he said, yeah, you need an agent? So why
they explained it? I mean, I was really green, really
really green, and so he took me to his agency.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Huh, I mean as before we came on live. I
mean when you come on the screen on an Eating Rawul.
The minute you arrive in that first scene, it's like, oh, okay,
no disrespect to mister Bartel. But now we've got now
there's an actor on the screen, as it were, God
(28:47):
rest his soul. You know what I mean, you're really
yeah suddenly is you can always tell when someone shows
up there they are ye yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
So I was I talking about anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Agents in the layah.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
So he introduced me to his agent and she, you know,
I went into her office. She was like, yes, I
hear you're you're an actor and she was like, you know, uninterested.
She said, so what do you what do you What
have you done? I said, well, right now I'm my
film Eating Raul is being shown and she goes, you're
you're an eating Roul sign right here right?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And you got that he's seeking missiles, aren't they They
really are the minute they think you're boom.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So uh. You know, as far as being a Hispanic
man in the business, it it was it was interesting
for me because I started working immediately. You know it
was I had. When I got to l A, it
(29:52):
was just a lucky thing up through up to uh
star Trek, I worked.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
A lot and he didn't stop. I mean really yeah,
And so.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I didn't feel like I was I mean, everybody gets
type cast. So I figured I was going to I know,
I was going to be playing Hispanic roles, and that's
okay with me, as long as the good roles. I
don't care. I played American, Indian, I played Greek, I
played Italian. I don't really care as long as they
(30:31):
have some substance to them, right. And so, in fact,
I was I was going to do a film I
was also I was already cast. The director was. It
was a Scott Glenn Lou Diamond Phillips movie, and it
wasn't a big role, but it had a nice through
line and I thought I could do something good with it.
(30:55):
So I went to a costume fitting and then the
costumer said, Robert, the director would like to speak to you.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No, and.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
An assistant came in with it. He said, he said,
here's the new script. So while I was waiting for
the costume, I was flipping through it and I noticed
there was a scene gone that my character was in.
And I called my agent and I said, you got
to get me out of this film. They've changed it
and I'm not going to do it. Why well, you know,
(31:31):
he was shocked. I said, well, they took off the
middle scene here. I don't have a through line anymore.
I'm just it doesn't make any sense. And he said, oh, well,
couldn't you just do it, Robert? I said, no, no,
do it. I hadn't signed anything yet, right, And so
the director called me after my agent called him, said Robert,
(31:53):
come on, come on, yeah, come on, you got to
do the film. He said no, no, I'm not going
to do the film unless you put that scene back.
He goes, no, we don't need the scene, you know.
I said, no, I need the scene that my character.
If I'm going to play this role, I need that
scene because I need a through line. Otherwise I don't
need to do this film. That guy got so pissed
(32:15):
off at me, and I just listened to him and
I said, well, if you put the scene in, I'm
in the film. If you're not, you're not going to
put it in and forget it. Find somebody else.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So bullsy, I mean, I yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Well, you know, I was working a lot, and so
I didn't have to take whatever role came my way,
you know, And so as the Hispanic actor, I know
there are a lot of my friends Latino fellow Latino
actors had a really really hard time during those and
(32:52):
they still do. Yeah, it's it's very It's a there's
a dearth of actor of parts for Latino actors, always
has been. But I was lucky and I got to work.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
But I know that others a lot of them had
a hard time, not so fortunate, a lot of it.
We've talked about this many times. As actors, a lot
the luck factor is extraordinarily important. Those early breakout roles
that just set you apart and get you three rungs
up the ladder, they matter a lot. So we come
to Voyager and you're asked to play a Native American.
(33:31):
What did you think when you Was it an offer
or did you have to audition?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
No, I auditioned, you did? Yeah? Yeah, what was the
character description?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I'm curious, So they're always so interesting. What was the
character description of.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I think it was. I think I did mention something
about spiritual or definitely Native American Marquis. I think the
Marquis angle was was more important in the description of
the character then.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Certainly for the pilot it was, wasn't it. Yeah, that
fight their aspect.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, well, from what I understand, they had been looking
for women to play the chacote role, the first officer role,
and they did some.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Bearing in mind that they wanted Genevieve Bousol to play
the captain as well. They were they were thinking of
putting two ladies together. Wow, yeah, that's quite we were
thinking for Star Trek in nineteen ninet.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Very much yeah, very much so. And so when I auditioned,
Jennet geen Vive Boujad was going to be the captain
and and that's what that's what wanted for me. That's
why I wanted to be because I don't mind her
man what you know, I'd seen her in uh for instance,
Anne of the Thousand Days.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, yeah, just luminescence in that film, I mean.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Just beautiful. So I wanted to work with her, and
I was very very disappointed when when she quit, But
I did. I had three auditions with her at all.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
No, no, So you never so came across the fact
that like ooh, this is disappearing.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
An we we only passed, We only passed. On the set,
I was doing tattoo uh experiments with Mike Michael Westmore
and she was she was shooting already. I think Tim
was shooting with her and Robbie. I passed her one
day and she had this glazed look in her eyes,
(35:37):
and I already I had already heard rumors that maybe
she wasn't going to be around for too long. When
I saw her with those glazed eyes when I passed her,
I thought, well, wow, too bad, too bad. Yeah, but
I saw see everybody everybody criticized this scene that has
been shown of her on the bridge saying fire instead
(36:03):
of like what Patrick Stewart would do or even Kate fire. Yeah,
and I saw her do that. I was, I was
behind the camera watching her do that, and I thought,
that's so brave. That is brave. That's a brave choice.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Everybody made fun of her, But I thought, Okay, anybody
can do fire, but can you? But can you summon
up what she did?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Who directed your pilot? If you don't mind, I forget
who it was? Do you remember who was the German?
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, I mean do you think. I mean no disrespect
to Rick, but do you think he didn't know how
to shoot her, that he couldn't find that the intensity
that she was that you saw even from the back
of her.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I think I think that they anticipated that she would
be that she had a slower rhythm for for TV.
That's than what is necessary to shoot a film.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
To shoot you know, yeah, you're shooting one page a
day on a movie. Yeah, and you're shooting seven and
a half to eight maybe nine. You know, a bad
day of a TV show and it's it's it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
That's what I think. I think that, and I think
that her choices were so unusual that they thought this,
this may not work, you know. I think they wanted
they wanted that kind of I don't want to say stereotypical,
because Kate ended up being a very good captain, but
(37:50):
they would she Jean Vieve would have brought something totally news,
totally original, unique.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Maybe she just needed it sort of an get get
warmed up. But I think if if you're not used
to that workload and it becomes a damic clean sword,
you know, hanging over your head every day, that can
I go through the day.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Was a period of time when so she was was
clear she wasn't going to work out to getting Kate.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It must have been a strange. You know, you're on
a series.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Now, you're on a thing that you're thinking is going
to go for seven years, and you know, you've got
this real crisis that occurs, and and what was the
what was the energy around that on on set?
Speaker 4 (38:37):
And well, we we didn't really know each other, you know,
I didn't know any of the actors, uh, the regular actors,
and so it was it was very off putting. I
think I think that we stopped shooting for at the
most maybe seven days until it brought in the new
(38:59):
captain and then and then Kate came along and everything
gelled after that pretty pretty fast. But yeah, it's just
it just seemed I was just like, you throw up
your hands and go, what come on? Can't we just
(39:19):
do a series and get on with it? But uh,
you know, so it was very unusual for sure, But
none of us really knew each other that that well.
I knew of some of the actors like Piccardo Roxanne
I knew of. But yeah, it was it was as
(39:40):
a cost.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Did you was there a good cohesions right away just
as a cost.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Uh, yeah, I think so. And it was verified by
a lot of the crew members who had also worked
on Deep Space nine and and Next Generation. Several of
them up to me and said, man, you guys, it's
like you guys have been around together for years.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, they said that to us everybody.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, and we all hated each other, did you really No.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
No, we didn't know. We well, we were Actually was
very good for.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
The first of all the casts. You know, you had
the most disruptions. You had, you had one, you lost
a cast member, and then you know, Jerry coming.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
It was was a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah, and so you know, you guys.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Had some disruption seven days there wasn't there seven seven
of nine days?
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, that was that's right. Losing Jennifer was yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
God bless that girl. I mean, she was so talented
and so lovely and it's just very very talented. It
can go mentally sues, man. It's it's like it's just.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
A television that pieces is not for everybody. You know,
some people don't.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, I'm not gonna. I mean, it didn't take me
too long to figure out that they didn't want much
input from the cast and you're working for the man.
Shut up and go home, babe, and do the best
you can. Now, you didn't sit that, you didn't lie
down and take it easy, did you? I mean, did you?
(41:25):
What didn't you? I've heard I heard stories, Robert so well,
just that you were not difficult, but you you had interpretations,
You had ideas that they weren't you know, they weren't
always Uh you know, I'm keen to hear about.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Well, actually that's not true. I heard to ever called
the right. I only called Jerry Taylor once with a
suggestion that she thought was good, and she incorporated it.
I called uh David Uh forgot his name, David? Yeah,
(42:09):
I called him once before this uh Chacote centered episode
that he was going to direct, and he lied to me.
I showed up on the set and he didn't do
what he said he was going to do, and I
was like, oh boy, it was that.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Remember it was the episode.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Called Maneuvers, and it was where Sessca takes off and
I go looking for her and the the bad guys
what do they call the the guys with the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
That wasn't.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
They capture me and uh, they put me in this
chair and they beat me up. Right, Well, my suggestion
to David Lettison was, how about if we get about
eight or ten or twelve ks on guys, You're going
to have extras, right, and he goes, oh, yeah, we're
gonna have extras. Okay, So what if instead of being
seated on this chair and slapped around, what if ten
(43:11):
or twelve ka's and are just beating the shit out
of me? Mm hmm, I said, wouldn't that be wouldn't
that be really amazing? They throw me to one guy,
throw me to another guy, Dick, I'm on the floor.
That now much more? How much more exciting than just
sitting in the chair, you know? Just he said, yeah, yeah,
(43:32):
that sounds good. Well the chair was waiting for me.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, they were the line producer in it went yeah,
the chair is cheaper.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah exactly, so another's sitting right there.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, probably at.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Coordinator would have been needed to But anyway, the truth is,
I hardly ever, I hardly ever called the producers. I
avoided them.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
If I called them, well, I mean, okay, and I'll
say it again, I mean, were you ultimately disgruntled by
the part you've got to fill in that show? And
that they underused you or under Let me.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Tell you how all that got started. I it's very short.
You know, when you go to these conventions, you have
a full audience, aren't there, and you want to be entertaining,
right right, Yeah, my lope, my battery is getting a load.
Let me let me change.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yeah, I've said some ship to mate.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Yeah. So so you're entertaining them, and you're saying stuff
and you're being uh irreverent about the show and all
that stuff, and they're laughing and all that stuff. And
so I said some funny stuff about buttons just okay,
you guys. Yeah, I said some stuff about you know,
(44:56):
the writing, especially which which was I truly believe was
not good after Jerry Taylor and Michael Pillar left. But
it was fun and games. I didn't really care, you
know what. I loved my Days Off. So I loved it.
When I had an episode and I just had two
(45:16):
or three scenes, I didn't complain about that at all.
I loved it. So it got around that I hated
Voyager and that it was all and it was all joking.
That of course fans some some don't know how to
take it. I don't know how to don't know, Irony,
you know, so that's really how it happened. And I
(45:41):
loved I loved working on the show. I loved the
cast and the crew. The writing was not not something
that I was particularly impressed.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
With, and.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
I figured at the time I didn't care if they
fired me. I no, I didn't think they would. And
I don't think my criticisms were so outrageous. My criticism
of the writing was just every episode with seven and
nine and and the captain is exactly the same. You
(46:18):
will do this, No, I won't you will.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
No, I won't.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
You will.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
No. I'll tell you why I won't.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
I mean dreams of dialogue of the same thing over.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And over and oh I know, but I mean we've
I mean, God knows. They were already in the fifteenth
year of a variation of a theme by the time,
you know, that's right, I mean, God knows, And that's
why you did seven years and we only did force
I suck it up, bitch.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
Yeah, no, I totally get it. But at the same time,
you know, it gets it gets a little boring on
the bridge.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
As you guys know, they can be long days.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
Yeah, and when they finally get to you in the
thirteenth hour of the evening and you say, twenty one
of the enemy ships approaching.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, it's a long day.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
I mean we're all human, you know, I mean look
we we we look. Yeah, long days are long days.
And sometimes people get you know, a little hot under
the collar or spark or spike you whatever you want
to call it. But you know, I mean to run
to run seven years on something. Granted, you're going to
have great swaths of time where you're like, man, I'm
(47:42):
getting read what do I here?
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Judge Judies on very important case on Judge Judy. I'll
be out in a minute.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
Well, you know, I always always had plenty of books
to read in my trailer, and I learned how to compose.
I was learning how to compose. Yeah, I lovely.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
So I mean getting back to your brother, I mean
he's worked with some incredible people. I noticed Tito Puente
and Smokey Romins and Stevie Wonder who's that Cuban percussionist,
really famous black dude. I can't remember his name now,
but he's really worked with some greats. Is he still
(48:27):
doing Is he still with us?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
And still oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's still playing. Still
very busy. Yeah, yeah, he's had he's had a great career.
Still play, I don't. I don't. I play a little piano.
I play a little guitar. I learned how to play
guitar so that I could take out the easy song
books of the sixteen right.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But you learn how to compose, you can you read music?
I take it then, and.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
Yeah, I know how to compose. I mean a certain style.
I wanted to learn how to compose for four part
chorus because I sang in choirs from fourth grade all
the way through my second year in college, and I
loved I loved music, classical Mozart and Beethoven and Bach especially,
(49:15):
so I wanted to learn how to do that, and
I taught myself. I got all the material that I
threw well done. Some of it's most of it I
wouldn't let anybody see. But there's maybe four or five
pieces that I wouldn't mind.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
What are they written for? They've written for guitar or piano, or.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
They were written for four part chorus, soprano, alto, tenor
and bass.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I do you still sing with ships and giggles? And
I do.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
I'm I always try to keep my voice in shape
and in case something happens or you know, I'm drunk
at a bar and karaoke is going on.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yes, you should come. Next time you're at a convention.
We're all there together because you know color and I
host the karaoke night.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Dude, You've got to come around. Uh. Yeah, we're sick
of Bobby Beltran. Not Bobby, but Bobby doctor the doctor.
He he'll always, you know, come and get his skirts on.
So I'm yeah, you show up. We do it usually
(50:29):
in Vegas. It's usually on the Thursday night. I think
I want to say, but next.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Time you haven't seen me. Then that's why you haven't
seen me, because I come in on Friday and do
the do everything I need to do Saturday, and then
then I fly out on Saturday.
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
I don't like Vegas, but but maybe if you guys
going to do it, I'll come in.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I mean, that's an opportunity. You've got to come and sing.
We'd love to hear that. Anything in the works are you?
Are you fielding anything in the moment or no? No?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Well that makes three of us.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
It's it's a really bad bad right now, is it?
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
It is.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
So I'm no older than you guys. I'm retired. I'm
seventy one years old.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
And daughter an how is your daughter? It's your teenager
now she's a freshman in.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
High school fourteen. Yeah. So I'm enjoying my my retirement
and if something comes up that I.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (51:39):
I like the fact that you can now audition on
your from your phone, right instead of driving the Santamonia.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
God, it's a double ledged sword.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
I will see that.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, the drive was a bitch, but being in the
room to impress was always like, yeah, yes you do.
Speaker 6 (51:59):
I ever won Scott a role where I was not
given a note And the problem with putting it on
your camera phone is that you don't get a note notes.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
That's the hard part I get.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I get my my now wife Sarah to just go
off screen. I wonder could you could you try and
do it better? Do you know, Judy Dench, But you
know my wife.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
Is German, so she's doing the offscreen voices and German accents.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Like a proper casting director. That's brilliant. I didn't know
that your wife was German.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
That's Robert.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
Where was the children.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Have you learned to speak any.
Speaker 6 (52:50):
No?
Speaker 4 (52:50):
I don't, I really don't. I learned all the German
that I was going to learn from Hogan's heroes. And we're.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah, it shouldn't make we shouldn't make this too this,
it's to this, it's over.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I always asking them to
help me, but they're like, oh, dad, I just forget
about it. We all speak English.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Like English, it's easier.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
She what about what about your daughter? Does she speak German?
Is your wife interested in her learning knowing German?
Speaker 4 (53:23):
My my daughter is fluent in German.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
See god blass, that's great. It's lovely to speak another language.
I got French and then it went away and it's
never come back. Really but yeah, it's it's a beautiful thing.
I think. Good for the mind too, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 6 (53:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
What do you do with your days? Then? I mean,
I mean, well, I'm writing.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
A play right now. I've been writing a play for
over two years now. It's a it's about the Spanish Conquest, not.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
About an English person.
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Got a lot, you know, but the theater. One of
the things that bothers me about the theater is that
it's very segregated. You have the white theater over here,
in the Hispanic theater over here, black theater over here
in the age. And I don't believe in that crap.
I really, I think we should all work together and nobody,
anybody can play any role. I remember seeing a black
(54:21):
actor in London playing Hamlet and he was so good
you forgot Adrian Lester.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
I bet you was it Adrian.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
I can't remember the name, he's so good. I bet
it was his before he also played Hotspur. Yeah, and
he's so terrific that you just forget about it, you know.
And I believe that's what theater should be. I don't
believe in this segregation bullshit. So when when my play
is produced, I am not going to I'm going to
(54:54):
open it up, you know. And so I believe it.
I believe in it.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
What you're saying is there's that there's a chance.
Speaker 4 (55:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
There's no white gods in this play Dom. He's trying
to no white gods in it?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
What about a princess? I'll give you my bloody So
you're right, you write every day? Or do you do?
You try and write every day?
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I try. It's a huge subject.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Right, you know, A huge. Do you have a title?
Do you have a working title?
Speaker 4 (55:33):
The Hearts of Men? Nice? Title the Hearts of Men?
Speaker 2 (55:38):
And it's a period piece, you say, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
Think I can do it with fifteen actors. Two Cortez
Cortez play being played by one actor and Montezuma played
by one actor, and then all the other actors have
played several right, Uh, yeah, I mean it's a huge,
a huge undertaking. But I'm almost finished. I'm very very
(56:05):
close to being finished with it.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
And which you need people for a read I would
be up for that, you know you need to hear.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
Yeah, sure, that's coming up very soon. Actually yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
And are you going to do this through the theater
company you've worked with the East l A No, No,
that was a that was a.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
Theater company that I founded with a couple of other guys.
This will be done at the LA Theater Center, the
new L A L Theater Center. Nice. At least they
said they're interested in, very interested in doing it there.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (56:44):
I've worked with them before.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
So it's been lovely chatting with you, Perl and uh
I you guys, I've always enjoyed you so much. Roberts
and uh and it really is. It's it's nice to
spend some quality time with you.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
And I love talking to you know, great actors and
peers that are great actors, and so I've really enjoyed it.
You know, we still love the theater, right, I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
Why not at all? I mean, I I go along
and uh it's you know, it's it's when it's in
your blood and it's and it's a calling, it just
never goes away, you know, yeah, pretty much, and bits
in this sort of you know, grows with.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
I've always I've always believed that I'm I'm best on stage.
That's that's always just my take on my own.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I thought you were going to say something else then,
that I'm just the best.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Wait, let me work with this guy.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
What he really meant was.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
You had to work with Dominic for four years. Uh No,
I agree with Connor that the theater was why I
became an actor, and the other stuff just happened and
it pays more. Yeah, it doesn't satisfy as much.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
No, And I can understand, getting back briefly before we
part ways, that you know, seven years is a long
time to be on a show where you got to
say that again, And I don't know. It's a double
edged sword, isn't it. I mean, look, it all afforded
us a house, a car that you'd never done before,
(58:24):
you know, you know, eating out. I mean I remember,
I remember standing in Gelson's which used to be the
Mayfair Market, having got that job, standing at the produce
department and thinking to myself, I'm never gonna have to
worry about a late fee from video hot ever again, true.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
I don't. I don't. I am not sorry about the
seven years or any of my television or film work.
I I do have to say that after the third
year on Voyager, I was like, oh four more years.
I don't know if I can take it until I
got the paycheck.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, you know, yeah, that that helps to burn yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
And the occasional good scene.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yes, honestly that and that goes a long way. When
you do get to do a good scene with another
good actor, you both pack yourself and it's four in
the morning and you pack yourself on the back and
you've been there twelve fifteen hours, and you go, we
did that. Yeah, that's personal acting. Yeah, no kidding well
and absolutely joy mate, push you all the best and
(59:34):
we can't wait to see him in person soon.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
Play what's that Connor?
Speaker 3 (59:40):
It's been a minute since.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
I know.
Speaker 4 (59:42):
I haven't seen you at any of the conventions recently anyway, but.
Speaker 2 (59:47):
I have to bump into Robert on the plane coming
home from Vegas just now, and it was just a
happenstance that. Oh no, yeah, so well, listen all the best.
Let us know. If you want to do a read
through of the play, i'd be I'm more than happy
to come come around.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Thank you, thank you, I will take I will take
you up on that. And when I finished the play,
if you'd like to read it, I'd like to.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I would love to do that too. Yeah, congratulations. I mean,
it's not the mean feat sitting down every day, that
the discipline it takes and the bravery to sit down,
and actually.
Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
It's yeah, a totally different discipline. And uh it's long
hours and not always good for the legs.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
But no, indeed, nothing much is after sixty film there.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Great, yeah you guys, Okay, thanks you shoot it very much,
just about
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
It.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.