Connor Trinneer's Panel Fedcon 2009
Connor’s Panel – Fedcon May 2nd 2009
Introduction in German, then ... “Please give a big welcome to Mr Connor Trinneer” ......’Faith of the Heart’ theme - huge applause - Connor climbs onto the stage wearing a black leather coat, grey T shirt, black jeans and boots.
C: How come Dominic’s my back drop !
What’s he doing? (There’s a small picture of Dominic taken from his panel projected behind Connor.)
So, thank you for having me, it’s always nice to be back here at Fedcon, and back to Bonn, this is a great place to have it, so whose water is this, mine?
Tech people: It’s yours, yes.
(Connor takes a drink) – That’s not water! (was it was the sparkling water that they love here?)
Tell me, um I’m curious, since I got here, they tell me a number of the male guests at least have dropped their pants, and um I’m not going to do that – I’m just wondering if you guys had anything to do with that, if so what’s prompted our dear old John Billingsley to shame himself, and Jeff Combs as well, who apparently came in from the wings with his pants down, at any rate I’m not going to do that because I don’t wear underwear so ... (someone shouts from the audience – “prove it!”) I’m kidding!
Uhh, so uhh, they got me here after a long flight , it’s been a long day, they got me here running like a rat on a treadmill, I’ve been running since I got here, so please, if you’ve got questions for me, ask away, if you don’t, I’ve got a little soft shoe performance I might want to do for you, no I’m kidding, so line up, I’m sure you have something to ask me, come on, go, go, you can go to the microphone.
Hi. Go to the microphone so everybody can hear what you’re saying, it’s not just me, I’m not the only one talking here - please.
Q::There’s maybe something for you to cheer you up
C: I’m happy, what are you talking about! (Connor laughs)
Q: We are fans from the series Stargate Atlantis and we love your performance as Michael the Wraith and this is a book on etiquette for Wraiths just for you.
C: Oh, thank you. Did you get what it was? It’s a Wraith book on etiquette ..”don’t play with your food” .... it’s Tayla – just do a couple of these – “otherwise your food plays with you” ... it’s Tayla again ... ok, thank you very much.
Q: Hello Connor
C: Hi.
Q: How are you?
C: Good, good.
Q : My question is, I wanted to ask how have you enjoyed your massages with T’Pol
C: You’re asking me if I liked the massages with T’Pol? (Pause laughter.) yeah, I mean, right? I think she’s a trained masseuse, it’s pretty obvious – yeah, she knows what she’s doing – they were good - they were a long time ago – I could use one actually, it was a long flight!
Q: Ok, thank you
C: Thank you.
Q Hello, good evening,
C: Hi. Get that microphone closer to your mouth sweetheart – there you go
Q I have a question about 24. You played a character, security man in the 7th season, how was it to work with the star Keifer Sutherland
C: What was it like to work with Keifer Sutherland on 24?
He’s super professional, he’s, er got it down, like when we start working it’s funny because, I got there and we rehearsed the first scene and I had a lot of lines and he gets there and immediately we rehearse the scene one time and he goes ok, so I’m going to do this, I’m going to say this line, this line this...that part of your line ... I’m going to go up down over here.... you go there....,ok, go go go and fortunately I knew my lines well enough that I could do that, I could stand toe to toe with him, and that’s good because pretty quickly I think, you know, everybody realised that we could have a pretty good scene going and he made sure everybody was quiet, The entire - any sound that was made he would let it rip, and make sure that everybody was silent and he made it a very professional atmosphere, and he’s a really good actor and he’s really good to work with. I don’t think he suffers fools gladly. I don’t think that if you came in and sort of knew your stuff? That that would be ok – I think if you know your stuff he really is on top of it for you, I have a feeling that if you don’t know your stuff, he will eat your head! But I was happy that I did know my stuff. (Connor laughs.)
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you.
Q: Hello Connor .
C. Hello. God, I have a feeling I should have like something up here besides, well .... (Connor looks around at the practically bare stage)
Q: Actually I have the same question.
C: The same exact question? I’ll just do the same exact same thing, I don’t have any stories but that
Q: I just won’t laugh ... I’m glad they didn’t kill your character
C: You’re glad they didn’t kill my character? It’s funny because I’ve had more comments for that show than any other show I’ve done after Enterprise. Most of the people that walk up to me – the first thing they say is – you didn’t die – that’s amazing, everybody dies – you’re like, you know, a redshirt, you come on the show and you die and the second part is – they’re all .. they like how I didn’t die when I don’t get shot and I freak out a little bit? ... Thank you Marc – (he’s brought Connor a chair) I’ve only been sitting the past 85 hours but I need to sit down. So they like my reaction to not getting shot and so ... I appreciate it, it was a good part – a good episode for me, so ..
Q: Thank you very much
C: Thanks
Q: Hi
C: How’re you doin’?
Q: What?
C: I said how’re you doin’ (audience laughs)
Q: Good
C: Good. (Connor laughs)
Q: My question is, are you interested in technology in real life too?
C: In what? Am I interested in technology in real life too. This is sort of a funny, a bit of a funny story so, my wife is a total technogadget person and we have to have the newest phone available every time the newest one available comes out so we obviously have the i-phone – and she has like 30 applications on it.
She’s got photos and this and that and movies and all sorts of stuff – there’s games to play. I still have the planet earth which is, if you have an i-phone, that’s what you get when you get it out the box. And I don’t know how to even get directions anywhere – I’m not the most technology-gifted person or even
interested anymore, so I can appreciate the people that like doing it, I value your opinions, but, I’m kind of a point and click guy.
Q: Thank you.
C: Thanks.
Q: Hello Connor.
C: Hi.
Q: I’m interested in your part of Michael the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis because my opinion and ... the strangest and is it true the wraith added humour to ... I wondered if ..
C: I’m sorry, one second, one second – can you do something to the mike so I can hear it? Like, give it more treble? There’s some techno talk for you – give it more treble – take some of that bass out
Q: Did that fix it?
C: yeah.
Q: Alright. I think the wraith are human underneath ... more than I’ve ever seen on tv and where did you draw your imagination to get into the mindset of such a creature?
C: How did I get into the mindset of such a creature? I have to say that getting into the mindset of playing Michael once he went into the wraith element – you know it’s pretty easy in the sense that... I would get there in the morning, say at 4.30 in the morning to put on two and a half or three hours of make up and as the process went on you know it starts out with just putting pieces of foam on you and gluing it on, the character kind of starts to evolve in front of you and so that would happen and you know, 4.30 in the morning, I don’t even know my name so by no means am I delving into the psyche of Michael – I’m trying to figure out how to get that second cup of coffee in me before they put more glue on my face and .. then they get the paint on and then they get the veins on and then they – you know – do the hair business and then I go off into my trailer to put the costume on and then they come and put my eyes in and there’s this funny thing about the eyes that it alters your reality completely because it eliminates your peripheral vision, everything that you see has this yellow hue to it, so, I get that in, and have 5 or 10 minutes to myself in my trailer – I just go and look in the mirror and that was it. And then, you know, I don’t talk like him – at all – and I lowered the range of my voice you know and I just start to spend a little time with the guy and I found it pretty easy. The funny thing is, you know, we can imagine anything, you can imagine the greatest joys, you can imagine the deepest darkest things and that’s the great thing about our minds, it’s imagination, it’s fantasy and one of the wonderful things about being an actor is you get to play that out, you get to see how you would do that in frankly a safe environment so that you know when you get a character like that and you know what that character has to do you can really kind of revel in it, you can really enjoy um being the worse person in the universe. And have fun with it. You know, you start to toy with people it really effects even the way you think about saying your lines so, um, it really doesn’t matter. If I had to do it doing this, me? Oh, God, that would be hard.
Just this space .that wouldn’t work.. with the make up on the top.
Q: Thank you
C: Thanks.
Q: I want to bring it back to Star Trek.
C: Go ahead.(sings) It’s been a long time ..
(crowd screams and applauds)
No, that’s Dominic’s song – that’s Dominic’s song, he’s going to sing that tomorrow for yer, I’m sure he will, his own version... (Connor sings a line under his breath)
Q: I want to know how you prepared for your role when you heard you were working on Star Trek, did you watch the old movies, were you a Trekkie?
C: How did I prepare for it? I’ll tell you this much, as a child I watched the re runs of the Original Series and my brother and his friends were huge fans of the show to the point where at recess in school they would walk around the perimeter of the playground talking about the previous day’s episode while me and my buddies were playing at basketball, throwing a football around, beating the crap out of each other and looking over at my brother and his friends going, “what the hell are you doing talking about this show”, so anyway I liked the show but it didn’t course through my veins if you know what I mean, and then I stopped, then I had no, uhh, I didn’t watch any science fiction properly after that, I didn’t watch any of it, and I didn’t watch it on purpose once I got the part because my sense of why they cast me was just something about me and not what I had and you know what if I had watched the show once I got the job, I would have been so intimidated by the scope of it in terms of you know the responsibility that I was carrying that I might have freaked out but since I was so blissfully unaware of .. ‘You All’ .. I think it was a lot easier.
Q: Good thing you did that
C: Yeah, thank you.
The Wraith!
Q: Hello
C: Hi
Q: Obviously, going back to Stargate now
C: (makes a high pitched noise)
Q: No!
C: I’m sorry
Q: I’m not a wraith either. Right. Most actors I hear talking about the wraith they say they don’t think wraith are evil, they always say they also have a right to live, and Michael had overreached himself and couldn’t feed anymore in the end, so what do you think about the Wraith?
C: Well, uhh, I agree with you - the Wraith are, let’s put it this way, if I’m a mosquito, and you’re a spider I think that you’re terrible. Now, there’s nothing wrong, you’re just living your life and eating me, as one would, so you’re just, it’s nothing...Humans are wraith-food, that’s the end of story, they need to be fed. Now, in regard to Michael, you know, he kept changing, you know – he kept kind of evolving to purgatory basically he was neither here nor there, he was kind of everybody’s bastard stepchild, he didn’t have, he had no home with the Wraith, and he definitely had no home with the humans and I think that’s what set him on course for, one – survival, and then two, figuring a couple of things out – you know – cloning his army, and then realising that as we all do, once you see that you could be King of the mountain, then you kind of want to be king of the mountain, and then I think he went for it, but no, you know, I think being a wraith is about survival, being an Atlantean was about survival, it’s obvious that’s all it was about really,surviving in that hostile relationship.
Q: And do you think that giving up the feeding was a great sacrifice for him?
C: Well, you know now he was interested in Macdonalds more than he was, no I don’t think it was, it was never introduced that he had issue with that closing off, you know, his .... what do you call it?:
Q: Feeding arm
C: You know what they call it?
Q: Yes
C: Do you? What? .They call it the ‘Handgina’ , ha, ha, ha. So, I don’t think he had .. since it didn’t ... I don’t think it really worked that well ..I think in the first episode, Michael, when he goes for Tayla? I think that’s pure instinct – I don’t think it would necessarily work for him, you know .. he’s a flawed wraith and a flawed human, but a perfect hybrid.
Q: Thank you.
Q: So, my question is, first of all are you aware of the fan films? There’s at least one fan film I know which is about your series, Enterprise.
C: Excuse my accent, (high pitched response) Really?
Q:Yes, it was shown here at the convention today.
C: How was it?
Q: Pretty good
C: Yeah? How was I?
Q: Excellent.
C: Yeah? I don’t remember it (laughs and whoops)
Q: The fan film which we saw earlier today was like a stop animation, it was a German guy who made this using like these action figures of all of you, and he built little bridges .. it looks pretty good.
C: Was I a bit stiff?
Q: Well, it looks like you had a stiff demeanour. (audience laughs) No, no you were great.
C: (laughs) Careful, man, you’re treading in some warm water.
Q: I haven’t finished yet. Um, it was a German guy who did this so I guess the voices are a little strange, but I understand it’s being dubbed into English. ..
C: By Germans?
Q: No, no – actually it’s being dubbed into English by another fan film group maybe you’ve heard of them, Star Trek New Voyages ...
C: Yes, I have.
Q: Yes, I actually represent them in Germany, by coincidence, and I ..
C: That’s it, you’re talking about it, that’s the coincidence here? (laughs)
Q: No, no – the guy who is doing your voice is Ron Boyd, who is er, a Canadian but apparently he’s giving a pretty good imitation of your voice (Connor’s pulling faces)
C: Alright.
Q: Unless you want the job of doing it yourself, of course.
C: (Laughs) I think that’s awesome, these fan productions, from what I’ve seen, they look pretty good.
Q: Yeah.
C: And they’re fun, huh.
Q: Absolutely.
C: Awesome, that’s really what it should be about, because you ain’t getting paid, huh.
Q: Unfortunately not.
C: It should be a lot of fun!
Q It’s lots of fun..so in retrospect.. does that mean when you get paid, it’s not so much fun?
C: (deadpan) Oh no, it’s a lot more fun (audience laughs and claps)
Cause you get to drive to the fun part in a much better car than you have if you’re working and not being paid for the fun stuff.
Q: I suppose that’s true, and you get the extras of T’Pol as well.
C: You don’t have T’Pol?
Q: Well, in that sense there is a T’Pol, but it’s kind of stiff (audience laughs)
C: Right ... That’s a shame. How’s her voice?
Q: Well, we’re waiting for her to come back to the convention so we can ask her if she can take on the job herself
C: okay, good luck! (laughs) That’s good.
Q: Ok
C: Awesome.
Q: So you should look out for it.
C: Do you have a card?
Q: Just look up Star Trek New Voyages de – for Germany, that’s our site, we’ve got a link to there
C: Alright. Great, thank you.
Q: Good evening, I’m Sabrina.Nice to see you.
C: Hi Sabrina, how are you?
Q: Fine, and you?
C: I’m good.
Q: That’s great. Temperature’s ok?
C: What? It is, it’s a little warm. Otherwise, I’m not bothered, I’ve got water, I’ve got a chair.
Q: Okay, so what did I want to ask. You talked about your wife.
C: I did?
Q: You did.
C: When? (audience laughter) Just now?
Q: Yes. About 15 minutes. You always have the newest technology in the house .. and that makes me now ask a question because I’m in the 10th year with my husband, How long are you married and what do you do and your wife to keep it work. (big laugh and face from Connor)
C: (deep voice) Five years and it’s none of your goddamned business. (audience laughs)
No, (normal voice) Five years later in May, and what do we do to keep it working, umm, you know she’s the only girl that I’ve ever really chased, and I just keep chasing her, you know, I mean, that’s – you know, it’s good to think that your wife’s sexy, that’s a good thing, um, and you know listen, you’ve got to talk to each other, and you’ve got to realise, you know, you’re in it for the long run and whatever petty things that come up, you know aren’t that big a deal – unless you’ve done something really bad (laughs) and it’s also a matter of just total respect, you know, here’s the thing that works in my house, that’s the way I grew up, it’s fifty-fifty – you know, I mean, I made all the money, She did a whole lot of other stuff I didn’t want to do, you know what I mean, it’s everything, no decision is ever made by me alone, and I think, personally I think that’s the secret, you know, it’s continuous, constant even playing field and respect. (Audience claps)
Q: Thank you.
C: And you gotta chase their tail – I hope she doesn’t hear this somehow. Now I’ve said that.. I’m sorry
Q: Can you hear me.
C: Yes, we’re done with that part, go ahead!
Q: I’ll repeat again. Another Stargate question. In Germany we have Season 4 at the moment so we don’t know how this ends
C: (interrupts) Come on, you know what, hang on a second, did you hear what he said? So, it’s the end of Season 4 and you don’t really know what happens – are you serious? (audience laughs) – Really? you don’t go online? You’re the most tech savvy people on the earth, internet-savvy folks on earth I’ve heard this a number of times today and I’m thinking, Oh, shit, I’d better not say anything.
Q: Okay. In science fiction everything is possible so I want to know will we be able to see Michael in the upcoming Stargate Atlantis movie or as a guest in the Stargate: Universe.
C: (pauses) Yep. (cheers from the audience)
Here’s the thing about me, oh, see, I can’t talk about this because you guys haven’t seen, or don’t know what’s going to happen, whatever.(audience laughs) Here’s what I think, what does happen in Season 5, and the end of it, and they’ve gotten to the movies, I will say this much, Michael I think is far too smart not to have cloned himself; a lot, so any situation he finds himself in – there’s another one. I really think that. If he didn’t do that? Shame on him! That’s very short sighted – he’s cloned everybody else.
Q: Thank you
Q: I have another question about Michael. Some time ago we had a long discussion about the epic problems of Michael of course, I want to know what you, Connor, think about these problems.
C: Well, I want to know what you think the problems are? So, I can answer those questions.
Q: Turning a wraith into a human, taking all of his memories, lying to him ..
C: It didn’t work, it didn’t work
Q: Terrible.
C: I’ll tell you what I, Connor, the actor thinks was a bit of a problem with what happened is that he spent a lot of time saying how angry Michael was at them for doing this to him – I feel like we should have moved on a little bit, I feel like there were more stories to tell than him just coming back a couple of times a year and saying, “Goddammit, you did this to me”, which he says verbatim almost every time they see him, And I, I, I wished a little bit that it had gotten, widened its scope a little bit to what his potential was in terms of being a real threat to that place and not just being, “I’m not doing this, because you guys did this to me”. They did do that to him and it’s a serious issue but, there were other, you know, there was other things they could have done.
Q: Do you think they were right of them to do this?
C: To do what, to Michael? I think it’s a fascinating dilemma – it brings to question for me, having a topical situation where if you think about it you can kind of bring it to right now, you ask, especially what we’ve been going through the last eight years, you ask the question of what responsibility morally and ethically you owe your prisoners and do they deserve to be treated humanely by your own code and that dilemma I find fascinating, And the fact that they introduced that into the show I think was kind of mirroring what is going on in the world with Iraq and all that nonsense we were pulling – when I say we, I don’t – look I’m an American but I was pissed off about that. So, was it right to do that to him? They were definitely trying to eliminate the threat now, morally and ethically did they have a right to do that? I think that’s a good thing to explore and I don’t think you have to have an answer to it, but I think the exploration’s what’s key ... so we can all come to our conclusions.
Q: Thank you. (audience applause)
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi
Q: So.
C: I’m going to take my coat off. I’m not going to take my pants off, but I will take my coat off.
(audience whoops) Stop It!
Q: So.You got pregnant.
C: Yes I did.
Q: Not even Kirk got pregnant and ..
C: I’m one up on him now, don’t I.
Q: I just want to know, the day you got that script did you actually go, why do I have to be knocked up?
C: That was our third episode, of the whole show. And at that point, I was tickled to pieces to have a big part. Two of the first three episodes were kind of big for me and when I found out that I was going to be pregnant I thought, that’s awesome, because, you know, it’s one of those fish out of water things and that is always fun to do and to the point where I got so into it there’s a couple of scenes in the episode that weren’t written one was that I’d started to just cry at the dinner table for no particular reason at all (Connor sobs) and the other was when I walked into engineering and this guy had done absolutely nothing wrong he was just standing there and I lit into him about some safety mechanism on the elevator. I kind of put those things in because I was like we’ve got to do this man we can’t make me eat pickles or anything you know, we’ve got to do some of those things that uhh, apparently some women do (audience laughs) when they’re pregnant, umm, I don’t know – I thought it was fun – but I loved doing it – I had a great time. It was a funny episode I thought.
Q: Yes, it was. Do you get reactions from fans, female fans of the show - thank you, you got it!
C: (laughs) Every single woman I come across goes “Thank you Connor, you got it (audience laughs) you got what it’s like (clapping) you got exactly what it’s like being pregnant!” (laughs) one of my proudest moments on Enterprise. No, I’ve never had a woman come up and say that to me even once (laughs).
I have had this, (low voice) you have no idea! (audience laughs)
Q: Thank you.
Pause.
C: Somebody dropped their pants.(audience laughter, and Connor) I’m killing myself up here.
Q: You know what I am?
C: Yeah, you’re one of the green ladies (audience laughs) Right? It’s not my first rodeo. Yeah, you’re from that episode where the green ladies came in and did their whole feminine wile power thing that didn’t work on Trip – right? (laughs) It worked. (audience laughs and claps) I just had to save Enterprise.
Q: Okay, I have a question to you. Umm, how was it for you, umm when Enterprise go to the end and didn’t continue.
C: How did I feel about when it was cancelled? Is that your question?
Q: Yeeah
C: I didn’t quite hear you. I didn’t quite hear you.
Q: I’m sorry.
C: Say it again I didn’t quite hear you.
Q: ahhh
C: Do it again, it’s ok. Listen, you got up here in a two piece bathing suit you can ask the question again. Think you got embarrassed. Can’t you? Ask the question again, I didn’t hear you.
Q: No problem, I will repeat it. Um, how do you feel, what’s your emotion when Enterprise go to the end and didn’t continued.
C: I was bummed, I was bummed. I, you know the thing about Enterprise not continuing was that I really felt like uh, we had really hit our stride in the fourth year, and kind of, I guess historically that was the case for a lot of the series, the franchise, it took a few years to kind of figure out what the show was gonna be and I thought in our fourth year we were hitting on all cylinders and (audience claps) yeah, thank you – it’s funny, I’ve heard more comments now that it’s been gone for a while that people who were probably at the time like, I don’t like it, like it. You know, I’ve gone back and watched it again and – it’s a damned good show. You know, I’m really proud of it, I’m really proud of what we did.(more clapping)
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you. (clapping)
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi Pam.
Q :Hi. Thank you for remembering my name.(Connor laughs) Other than Star Trek and Stargate you’ve done a lot of guest appearances in other shows, can you tell me which one you liked best and which role you’d really like to play.
C: um, I liked the part on Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles that I did, that was fun um, obviously ... you guys haven’t seen it um, but I liked 24 a lot, that was a really, that was sort of a different thing for me to play he didn’t seem to have that much strength about him umm, so it was nice to try and find that reality, um, but what I’d like to play? (blows out) A doctor, a lawyer, or a cop, or a teacher – you know what the funny thing is that you come across these roles sometimes, like in pilot season that, it doesn’t really matter what it is it all comes in the writing – you know when you find a role, not even necessarily a role but a project that is interesting to you, you, you know you really put your hard hat on and get to work and you want to get it because it’s good and there’s enough crap out there that to be involved in good projects is pretty much what it’s all about, I think. Um, and I think I’ve been pretty fortunate even in the guest star stuff that I’ve done that I’ve got to be a part of good shows and uh, you know you just, listen, being an actor I mean, seems so glamorous doesn’t it, you know, it’s a lot, it ebbs and flows sometimes you’re getting good stuff sometimes you have to go “I am not going to audition for this piece of crap”, but um, you know, you’ve got to pay the bills, like everybody else, there’s things you don’t want to do sometimes. My porn career was (audience laughs) rather successful, it wasn’t fulfilling. Yeah, it’s hard to say what would I like to do? I’d like to be on a really good long running show or make awesome movies (clapping) or on the stage, some Shakespeare, Chekhov or Shaw, you know Ibsen.
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you
Q: Hello thank you for coming to Germany.
C: Thank you. It’s nice to be here.
Q: I have a question about Star Trek and some Star Trek series are closed, the Classic series is closed, and goes to movie the big screen and the Next Generation is closed and goes to the big cinema – do you see any chance that Enterprise goes to the Big Screen, to the cinema in any time?
C: Hey, listen, never say never I mean the Original series the fact that it got made into a movie well is thanks to you guys
Q: I think many fans has a little hope that Enterprise come back
C: Well let’s try to make the cartoon first (audience laughs and claps) make the cartoon...... you know, you’ll build up the audience with the cartoon and then um, for some reason somebody is going to throw millions of dollars to have you make a movie and that’s kind of a track I think we should go on but, nobody’s listening to me!
Q: Okay, thank you
C: I don’t, you know, it’s already gone past us, it’s already gone past us to a whole era this new movie is so, I haven’t seen it yet but it’s so different it’s for a new generation, a new audience, it’s not, it’s for us, but not - Enterprise has nothing to do with it and you know to be honest with you, let’s put it to bed, I mean, I mean let’s move on – I want to move on. I mean, I like coming here but I’m on ... no? You’re all dead silent – “What is he talking about!” (laughter) You’ve already got me one. Go ahead I’m sorry. Got jetlag and it’s coming out in me.
Q: Hi, I’m Greta and I want to ask two questions actually first of all Jeffery Combs and Marc Alaimo told us about special moments when they realised they wanted to be an actor and I want to know if you had one of those yourself.
C: Yes it’s kind of funny actually – so I’d never read a play, I’d been to two musicals one was ‘ A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum’ and one was ‘Cats’. And I went to college to play football, American football and so I’m in my sophomore year in college, and I don’t have that great a time playing football, it hurts (laughter) and uh, so I’m kind of, I don’t have a major, I don’t know what to do with my life I’m kind of floundering in college, you know, a short period of getting by and so I go to a party and I start talking to this girl, it’s kind of where it all starts isn’t it, she’s like why don’t you audition for a play and I’m thinking, are you going to be there? She said she was going to be there so I went home, for Thanksgiving weekend and my parents had actually met doing ‘Blithe Spirit’, a Noel Coward play and uh, so my mom worked with me on this play, it’s a play called, it’s a male version and female version of Lone Star with Landry Burton, it’s a great play, two plays. So I go back and I walked in and nobody’s ever seen me before I was at a small university and I went in and literally I something happened, I just had somehow something clicked I was able to tell the story through me somehow, I don’t know how to explain this really but I walked out of there that night convinced that I was going to be an actor and I walked out of the audition hall kind of like yelled up at the heavens to thank them for letting me know what I was going to do with the rest of my life however poor I may be and I quit football the next day I walked into my coach’s office and I was kind of like I don’t want to play football anymore, and he said why, and I said,” I want to be an actor”. He said “what?”, “I want to be an actor”, he said “have you ever done this before?”, I said “no, but I really think I can do it!” (laughter) and fortunately they were super supportive, they came to see all my plays and then I decided I wanted to test my mettle to see if I was any good, so I got accepted into the National Theatre Institute in Connecticut, the Gino Neal Centre, I thought acting with Gino was the cream of the crop that could get in, and they weren’t that great, they weren’t any better than me, so I was convinced that, yeah, I can do this, and I also had a great deal of support from my family and uh, here I am. (audience claps)
Q: My second question is more a comment really. I watched Star Trek when I grew up, mostly TNG and I think it was one of the reasons why I became a scientist myself so as a scientist I wondered if it was hard or funny or exciting for an actor who has no connection with science to do stuff
C: Is it that obvious! What do you mean? I’m kidding. Um, what’s it like playing a scientist? I’ll tell you what’s really good about it is that on several occasions we had NASA we had astronauts come by and they would say the same things that you just did, they were inspired by Star Trek to do what they were doing great things you know they were building things I couldn’t even imagine and going off into space in the shuttle and we even had engineers coming from JPL the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California coming in and saying these things and you’d ask what they do and they would explain what they were doing it was the most remarkable stuff and every time they came in they were always so thrilled to be there, they were thrilled to be there because they were coming to the epicentre of what inspired them to do what they were doing and I’ve got to tell you that’s one of the things I’m most proud of that’s sort of a by product of doing the show that you know, honest to God if you can inspire somebody to do something like that or anything that’s positive for the world and the universe, I mean you kind of knock one of those things down and your life gets worth and I feel like I kind of did that and I’m pretty proud of that (clapping) the other side of that coin is I had to take a, what is it, geology course and a math course in college to substitute for the science course that I dropped - five times (audience groans) because I was flunking it.
Q: Hi Connor, it’s Kurt. I just have a question what was the most unforgettable experience in your life, besides Fedcon. (audience laughs)
C: (flippant) I don’t know. Um, the most remarkable experience of my life – the birth of my son, and marrying my wife.
Q: Thank you.
C: Winning next week’s lottery in California which is 220 million dollars. (laughter)
Q: Hi. I have a question.Yesterday was my birthday ..
C: (Interrupting loudly) Happy Birthday! And a one, two, three (leads the singing) Happy Birthday to you, Come on ! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday – what’s your name?
Q: My name’s Jessica
C: Jessica, Happy Birthday to you!
Q: I’m eighteen now.
C: Happy Eighteenth!
Q: Thank you so much.
C: Is that all you wanted to say?
Q: Yes (audience laughs) Thanks!
C: It was? Glad I could help!
Q: Hi Connor. You’re actually one of my favourite actors from Enterprise – good job.
C: Thank you.
Q: And also on Stargate: Atlantis, ok. (laughter) it’s good, it’s good
C: Thank you
Q: I know you didn’t write the episodes as an actor but I really liked Season 4 of Enterprise better or more the stories very good except the Season opener.
C: Season opener?
Q: In the Storm Front
C: What happened? (laughter) I’m not kidding – what happened.
Q: Time travel, and Nazis.
C: Oh.
Q: Do you have any thoughts about that. I know you’re an actor, you didn’t wrote this – Brannon Braga...
C: (interrupts) Say that again.
Q I beg your pardon?
C: Say what you just said again.
Q: uh
C: I know you’re an actor, you didn’t write it, I know you’re an actor, you didn’t write it. I didn’t write it. (applause) Was it dumb? I wasn’t in it very much.
Q: I know. That’s ok. I think the German fan base of Star Trek is very strong and I think that episode pissed off a lot of us, well, I was angry about it, I’m sorry.
C: Hey, listen, you know what, I would be too – you’re absolutely right
Q: Thanks,thanks a lot. (clapping)
C: The great thing about you all – you fans – is that you’re not quiet, you know you say your opinions, and you don’t just say it at these, you say, you write letters to the studio, you write letters to the show, and I think that’s very important and um yeah, listen, offensive stuff is offensive stuff, and you should speak out anytime it happens – that’s your responsibility so yeah, I agree with you – dumb, dumb.
Q: Hi Connor, my name’s Tomas, just a short question, I’ve been married for 2 years and every once in a while I get into a conversation with my wife about you (audience laughs)
C: That’s great. I don’t know where this is going a short but that’s ...
Q: Give me a second. It’s always the same with ‘he’s such a sweet guy’ ‘yes’, ‘he’s so sweet’, ‘yes’, I said to her, he’s there at Fedcon and we can ask him a question and see him really close and she said (mimics her giggling)
C: Where is she?
Q: She is over here and I thought I can ask you if you ...
C: (addressing the girl) You should stand up now you know – because you’re a part of this.(applause)
Q: I just wanted to ask you if you could give her a hug? Give it to her really ..
C: I’ll help you out, I’ll help you out. I’ll help you out. (Connor jumps down from the stage, goes into the audience and hugs the girl) (Prolonged applause and whoops)
Bet you didn’t know that was coming. That’ll be five cents.
Q: Hello, Connor.
C: Hi (laughing). Is that from Star Wars? Wait a minute, wait a minute – go ahead.
Q: Hello Connor, My name is Mark.
C: Hi Mark.
Q: I’m very nervous to speak now to you but my question is could you share with us some of your memories of working with Scott Bakula. (member of audience heckles, “boring!”)
C: Get out! (laughter) I love that song. Yeah, working with Scott Bakula, I think I learned everything I know about how to behave as a professional in this business from him, not that I acted like a jerkoff beforehand but he never raised his voice, you know, he just, you know, commanded respect, he came to work, did his work he had his family away from work, and I think he handles his fame extremely well. And, all his decisions kind of centred around his family and uh, and beyond that he’s just one of the most stand up honest gracious dead sexy men you’ll ever meet (laughter) he’s a great guy, really – I uh, there’s a special place for him in uh heaven – not right now! But whenever that’s happening. Be fine. Help me out here. (applause)
Q: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the impressions.
C: My pleasure.
Q: Hello.Um. I want to ask you if you could tell us what you are doing currently.
C: Um. Currently I’m doing a show called ‘Lincoln Heights’, um, er ,I play a, again it’s one of those where you don’t know what is going to happen to it, it’s a new detective, I get to play a cop (laugh and applause) It’s a, I’ve had a couple of episodes on the show called Lincoln Heights and you know, I guess if they like me they’ll bring me back, and if they don’t they’ll shoot and kill me. (laughter). Well, thank you.
Q: Hi Connor.(loudly)
C: Hi. You guys are supposed to have a microphone, huh.
Q: Yeah, I’m used to microphones in some kind of way. So this is my first Fedcon, I’ve got a question of course, that’s why I’m standing here, I want to know which question you never get asked that you wanted to get asked, and what you would answer to it. (laughter and applause)
C: What’s your favourite colour? I don’t think anybody’s ever asked me so there you go.
Q: So what is your favourite colour.
C: It’s blue, no it’s green, blue-green.
Q: Thank you.
C: I have been asked, almost everything under the sun – and a few other questions. (laughter) So, yeah. And you know the thing is I, you know, I encourage anybody to ask me anything and if I don’t want to answer I won’t, and I’ve done that before too. So, don’t ask me for those.
(Connor blows down microphone) Uh, has anyone else got a question for me? Is that it? Are you running up to the mike? Or are you just leaving!
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi.
Q: I wanted to ask what was your thought if you read on a script that “Connor will die”. (she then freaks out as she realises she’d said ‘Connor’ instead of ‘Trip’! ) I meant Trip! (lots of laughter)
C: Well, I don’t think I’d be very happy about that! (laughter) first off ... and then I’d probably ask for a rewrite, and if that didn’t work I’d go to the producers. Then I’d quit. What did I think about when I found that Trip died, in the final episode? It being the final episode, and it being a lot about my character? I was fine with it. I mean, the show was ending, in the finale it was going to make my character come full circle and put that character to rest – yeah – that’s ok. Um, it was too bad that they had to do that but, I do think somebody had to go – (softly) and it was me.(pulls a face, audience goes ahhh!) You have seen Season 4 right? (people shout no, or laugh etc) Ah, crap, are you sure you’ve never seen it?
Q: Thanks.
C: Thank you.
Q: Hello.
C: Hi.
Q: What is the funniest thing that happened on the Star Trek set.
C: The funnest thing? We all had a lot of fun just hanging out with each other but there was one thing that we did to Scott, that was, I thought, pretty cool. So he had, you might have heard this, he had done a Canada Dry Ginger Ale commercial, back in the day, when he was a song and dance man, and so they got hold of the commercial and they got hold of these green bottles that it came in from like Arizona, and they put labels on it – and they printed off the lyrics to this little song and very quickly taught us all how to do the dance so Scott walks in to work, it was a bridge day so we were all there, cue the music and we all do the thing and you know there’s like fifteen plasma screens on that bridge, right all playing on, that commercial was playing on so Scott walks in ready to go to work, and he’s like, oh my God! That was pretty funny. And then one time we all dressed up as the Rocky Horror picture show and ‘do the timewarp again’ – who was I? In the Rocky Horror Picture Show. (someone calls out Rocky) No, I was the blond dude with the blond wig and gold lame shorts. You know – the body – is that Rocky? (people say yes) Oh, I was Rocky! (laughter). Wait a second, I wasn’t Franken-furter Frankenfurter?, you’re right I was Rocky! (Connor laughs) (someone calls out “Have you seen pictures of that?”) God, I hope not. I think that they made sure there were no cameras! (Someone calls pity!) Boy, a pity, believe me!
Q: Hi. Did you ever take a role that you later regretted taking?
C: Never.
Q: Why not? (Audience laughs incredulously)
C: Do you want me to take a role I would regret later?
Q: I mean, probably you’ve taken a role that you didn’t like very much playing?
C: I’ll tell you one, this is, this is no I didn’t regret that, no. I was the face of Japan Tobacco for four or five years. Japan Tobacco’s Japan’s .. tobacco (laughter) they do cigarettes and I you know I wrestled with that but the whole campaign was about if you’re gonna smoke be conscientious, the entire campaign was I would set up walking around the world with these leather suitcases in this old suit, I would sit down with this goofy look on my face, and I’d take out my zippo lighter I’m about to, you’d never see a cigarette, I’d take out my zippo lighter and I’d be sitting next to some old dude, or some pregnant woman or birds (laughter), birds don’t like smoke, and I would choose not to smoke, and put the lighter away. I think the tag line was ‘Consideration breeds Satisfaction’. So, I was able to you know, make my deal with the devil on that one, and it helped me survive for five years. Uh, so, yeah, if I, if there’s one that makes me kind of go, you know, I had to talk to my parents about it, I had to ask them about it, seek their opinion and er,... shouldn’t have done that one. (laughter).
Q: Hi Connor. Ooh, that was very loud. I would like to know do you remember anything from your Geology class?
C: I like rocks.
Q: Me, too!
C: I like dirt (Connor coughs)
Q: Me, too.
C: (Coughs) No I don’t. No.
Q: That’s very sad.
C: I remember that I passed.
Q: That’s very good. If you want to know more about rocks I’m here.
C: Ok! (Connor coughs) Forgive me, I caught a cold from my son. One more question, make it a good one, because my voice is ... (coughs again). (audience goes aaahh and laughs). I’m kidding. (someone gives Connor a sweet, Connor eats it), That’s not a lozenge, that’s a piece of candy! (muffled voice while he eats it) It’s good though! (laughter) Thank you.
Q: I want to ask you, what was your worst, and what was your best audition ever?
C: Ever?
Q: Yes.
C: I really have to say one of my worst auditions ever was my first audition for Enterprise. I’m not joking, it was terrible. I had, I had three auditions that day, for three pilots and for pilots they usually give you a lot of copy, a lot of pages to learn so I had to learn about twenty five pages of dialogue for these various shows and Enterprise happened to be the last one on that day. It was a really hot day, I had an old 1968 Skylark with no air conditioning, and the only window that went down was on my driver’s side, and it only went down halfway. It didn’t have air conditioning. So I got in, and it was the one audition I really didn’t work on, I didn’t , well to be honest I didn’t care, I didn’t know anything about it and it wasn’t my, I didn’t think it was something that I’d be good at, and I went in there and I did the audition and, uh, the casting director Ron Surma, said to me, he gave me a couple of notes, had me do it again and said can you come back in an hour? I was like (he pulls face, laughter) it’s going to be just wetter, and hotter if he pulls me back in an hour – I didn’t say that to him, i said Yeah! Sure, great. So I got out of there and I called my agent and I said that from now on I’m not doing three auditions in a day because I just ruined this one – I came back in (noise of Klingon drinking group out in the corridor outside) (it’s just Klingons – shouts from the audience) Dirty, stinky Klingons! (laughter and applause) Screwing up my story! Anyway, so the audition’s obviously a little bit better – the best audition I’ve ever had? I don’t know if you’re familiar with a play called Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. I, I, I er, got an audition for this play at the Huntingdon theatre in Boston and it’s a very, it’s a pretty difficult play by Tom Stoppard he writes pretty difficult plays and I went in there, and I had my first audition and I nailed it, but I could tell they didn’t want to hire me, I could tell they wanted somebody – I know this, they wanted somebody better looking (audience goes aahh, someone shouts, ‘not possible’) It’s alright, and uh, so they called me back, but this time they were going to have me read the entire first act so I went down and prepared the entire first act in a couple of days – that’s a lot of work – I went in there and I kicked the hell out of it, it was awesome and he said keep going. Humph. I was like alright, to hell with it, I just kept going – We finished the second act and at that point he stopped me and was like (Connor does an exaggerated sigh) “You really want this and I really don’t want to give it to you”, (audience laughs) and I said, “Yes, I do”. He said, alright, if you want it, maybe we’ll give you a call, (audience groans) they’re not going to tell you in the room, at least not in regional theatre. They’re not going to go, Oh, God you’re a star come back to our theatre! So, I went home that night and It didn’t matter to me if I got it or not, at that point, because I knew I’d nailed it and they called, and I found out later that they didn’t want to give it to me, they had two other guys they were begging to be good – please be a little bit better so we can cast you – and not him.(laughter) But, it was one of my proudest accomplishments doing that whole production and er, yeah, that was probably my best audition ever. That’s it. Ok, ladies and gentlemen, that’s me. (huge cheers and applause).
Connor Trinneeeeeeeeer (Mark Lee)
Faith of the Heart theme, Connor takes his bows and waves.
Introduction in German, then ... “Please give a big welcome to Mr Connor Trinneer” ......’Faith of the Heart’ theme - huge applause - Connor climbs onto the stage wearing a black leather coat, grey T shirt, black jeans and boots.
C: How come Dominic’s my back drop !
What’s he doing? (There’s a small picture of Dominic taken from his panel projected behind Connor.)
So, thank you for having me, it’s always nice to be back here at Fedcon, and back to Bonn, this is a great place to have it, so whose water is this, mine?
Tech people: It’s yours, yes.
(Connor takes a drink) – That’s not water! (was it was the sparkling water that they love here?)
Tell me, um I’m curious, since I got here, they tell me a number of the male guests at least have dropped their pants, and um I’m not going to do that – I’m just wondering if you guys had anything to do with that, if so what’s prompted our dear old John Billingsley to shame himself, and Jeff Combs as well, who apparently came in from the wings with his pants down, at any rate I’m not going to do that because I don’t wear underwear so ... (someone shouts from the audience – “prove it!”) I’m kidding!
Uhh, so uhh, they got me here after a long flight , it’s been a long day, they got me here running like a rat on a treadmill, I’ve been running since I got here, so please, if you’ve got questions for me, ask away, if you don’t, I’ve got a little soft shoe performance I might want to do for you, no I’m kidding, so line up, I’m sure you have something to ask me, come on, go, go, you can go to the microphone.
Hi. Go to the microphone so everybody can hear what you’re saying, it’s not just me, I’m not the only one talking here - please.
Q::There’s maybe something for you to cheer you up
C: I’m happy, what are you talking about! (Connor laughs)
Q: We are fans from the series Stargate Atlantis and we love your performance as Michael the Wraith and this is a book on etiquette for Wraiths just for you.
C: Oh, thank you. Did you get what it was? It’s a Wraith book on etiquette ..”don’t play with your food” .... it’s Tayla – just do a couple of these – “otherwise your food plays with you” ... it’s Tayla again ... ok, thank you very much.
Q: Hello Connor
C: Hi.
Q: How are you?
C: Good, good.
Q : My question is, I wanted to ask how have you enjoyed your massages with T’Pol
C: You’re asking me if I liked the massages with T’Pol? (Pause laughter.) yeah, I mean, right? I think she’s a trained masseuse, it’s pretty obvious – yeah, she knows what she’s doing – they were good - they were a long time ago – I could use one actually, it was a long flight!
Q: Ok, thank you
C: Thank you.
Q Hello, good evening,
C: Hi. Get that microphone closer to your mouth sweetheart – there you go
Q I have a question about 24. You played a character, security man in the 7th season, how was it to work with the star Keifer Sutherland
C: What was it like to work with Keifer Sutherland on 24?
He’s super professional, he’s, er got it down, like when we start working it’s funny because, I got there and we rehearsed the first scene and I had a lot of lines and he gets there and immediately we rehearse the scene one time and he goes ok, so I’m going to do this, I’m going to say this line, this line this...that part of your line ... I’m going to go up down over here.... you go there....,ok, go go go and fortunately I knew my lines well enough that I could do that, I could stand toe to toe with him, and that’s good because pretty quickly I think, you know, everybody realised that we could have a pretty good scene going and he made sure everybody was quiet, The entire - any sound that was made he would let it rip, and make sure that everybody was silent and he made it a very professional atmosphere, and he’s a really good actor and he’s really good to work with. I don’t think he suffers fools gladly. I don’t think that if you came in and sort of knew your stuff? That that would be ok – I think if you know your stuff he really is on top of it for you, I have a feeling that if you don’t know your stuff, he will eat your head! But I was happy that I did know my stuff. (Connor laughs.)
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you.
Q: Hello Connor .
C. Hello. God, I have a feeling I should have like something up here besides, well .... (Connor looks around at the practically bare stage)
Q: Actually I have the same question.
C: The same exact question? I’ll just do the same exact same thing, I don’t have any stories but that
Q: I just won’t laugh ... I’m glad they didn’t kill your character
C: You’re glad they didn’t kill my character? It’s funny because I’ve had more comments for that show than any other show I’ve done after Enterprise. Most of the people that walk up to me – the first thing they say is – you didn’t die – that’s amazing, everybody dies – you’re like, you know, a redshirt, you come on the show and you die and the second part is – they’re all .. they like how I didn’t die when I don’t get shot and I freak out a little bit? ... Thank you Marc – (he’s brought Connor a chair) I’ve only been sitting the past 85 hours but I need to sit down. So they like my reaction to not getting shot and so ... I appreciate it, it was a good part – a good episode for me, so ..
Q: Thank you very much
C: Thanks
Q: Hi
C: How’re you doin’?
Q: What?
C: I said how’re you doin’ (audience laughs)
Q: Good
C: Good. (Connor laughs)
Q: My question is, are you interested in technology in real life too?
C: In what? Am I interested in technology in real life too. This is sort of a funny, a bit of a funny story so, my wife is a total technogadget person and we have to have the newest phone available every time the newest one available comes out so we obviously have the i-phone – and she has like 30 applications on it.
She’s got photos and this and that and movies and all sorts of stuff – there’s games to play. I still have the planet earth which is, if you have an i-phone, that’s what you get when you get it out the box. And I don’t know how to even get directions anywhere – I’m not the most technology-gifted person or even
interested anymore, so I can appreciate the people that like doing it, I value your opinions, but, I’m kind of a point and click guy.
Q: Thank you.
C: Thanks.
Q: Hello Connor.
C: Hi.
Q: I’m interested in your part of Michael the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis because my opinion and ... the strangest and is it true the wraith added humour to ... I wondered if ..
C: I’m sorry, one second, one second – can you do something to the mike so I can hear it? Like, give it more treble? There’s some techno talk for you – give it more treble – take some of that bass out
Q: Did that fix it?
C: yeah.
Q: Alright. I think the wraith are human underneath ... more than I’ve ever seen on tv and where did you draw your imagination to get into the mindset of such a creature?
C: How did I get into the mindset of such a creature? I have to say that getting into the mindset of playing Michael once he went into the wraith element – you know it’s pretty easy in the sense that... I would get there in the morning, say at 4.30 in the morning to put on two and a half or three hours of make up and as the process went on you know it starts out with just putting pieces of foam on you and gluing it on, the character kind of starts to evolve in front of you and so that would happen and you know, 4.30 in the morning, I don’t even know my name so by no means am I delving into the psyche of Michael – I’m trying to figure out how to get that second cup of coffee in me before they put more glue on my face and .. then they get the paint on and then they get the veins on and then they – you know – do the hair business and then I go off into my trailer to put the costume on and then they come and put my eyes in and there’s this funny thing about the eyes that it alters your reality completely because it eliminates your peripheral vision, everything that you see has this yellow hue to it, so, I get that in, and have 5 or 10 minutes to myself in my trailer – I just go and look in the mirror and that was it. And then, you know, I don’t talk like him – at all – and I lowered the range of my voice you know and I just start to spend a little time with the guy and I found it pretty easy. The funny thing is, you know, we can imagine anything, you can imagine the greatest joys, you can imagine the deepest darkest things and that’s the great thing about our minds, it’s imagination, it’s fantasy and one of the wonderful things about being an actor is you get to play that out, you get to see how you would do that in frankly a safe environment so that you know when you get a character like that and you know what that character has to do you can really kind of revel in it, you can really enjoy um being the worse person in the universe. And have fun with it. You know, you start to toy with people it really effects even the way you think about saying your lines so, um, it really doesn’t matter. If I had to do it doing this, me? Oh, God, that would be hard.
Just this space .that wouldn’t work.. with the make up on the top.
Q: Thank you
C: Thanks.
Q: I want to bring it back to Star Trek.
C: Go ahead.(sings) It’s been a long time ..
(crowd screams and applauds)
No, that’s Dominic’s song – that’s Dominic’s song, he’s going to sing that tomorrow for yer, I’m sure he will, his own version... (Connor sings a line under his breath)
Q: I want to know how you prepared for your role when you heard you were working on Star Trek, did you watch the old movies, were you a Trekkie?
C: How did I prepare for it? I’ll tell you this much, as a child I watched the re runs of the Original Series and my brother and his friends were huge fans of the show to the point where at recess in school they would walk around the perimeter of the playground talking about the previous day’s episode while me and my buddies were playing at basketball, throwing a football around, beating the crap out of each other and looking over at my brother and his friends going, “what the hell are you doing talking about this show”, so anyway I liked the show but it didn’t course through my veins if you know what I mean, and then I stopped, then I had no, uhh, I didn’t watch any science fiction properly after that, I didn’t watch any of it, and I didn’t watch it on purpose once I got the part because my sense of why they cast me was just something about me and not what I had and you know what if I had watched the show once I got the job, I would have been so intimidated by the scope of it in terms of you know the responsibility that I was carrying that I might have freaked out but since I was so blissfully unaware of .. ‘You All’ .. I think it was a lot easier.
Q: Good thing you did that
C: Yeah, thank you.
The Wraith!
Q: Hello
C: Hi
Q: Obviously, going back to Stargate now
C: (makes a high pitched noise)
Q: No!
C: I’m sorry
Q: I’m not a wraith either. Right. Most actors I hear talking about the wraith they say they don’t think wraith are evil, they always say they also have a right to live, and Michael had overreached himself and couldn’t feed anymore in the end, so what do you think about the Wraith?
C: Well, uhh, I agree with you - the Wraith are, let’s put it this way, if I’m a mosquito, and you’re a spider I think that you’re terrible. Now, there’s nothing wrong, you’re just living your life and eating me, as one would, so you’re just, it’s nothing...Humans are wraith-food, that’s the end of story, they need to be fed. Now, in regard to Michael, you know, he kept changing, you know – he kept kind of evolving to purgatory basically he was neither here nor there, he was kind of everybody’s bastard stepchild, he didn’t have, he had no home with the Wraith, and he definitely had no home with the humans and I think that’s what set him on course for, one – survival, and then two, figuring a couple of things out – you know – cloning his army, and then realising that as we all do, once you see that you could be King of the mountain, then you kind of want to be king of the mountain, and then I think he went for it, but no, you know, I think being a wraith is about survival, being an Atlantean was about survival, it’s obvious that’s all it was about really,surviving in that hostile relationship.
Q: And do you think that giving up the feeding was a great sacrifice for him?
C: Well, you know now he was interested in Macdonalds more than he was, no I don’t think it was, it was never introduced that he had issue with that closing off, you know, his .... what do you call it?:
Q: Feeding arm
C: You know what they call it?
Q: Yes
C: Do you? What? .They call it the ‘Handgina’ , ha, ha, ha. So, I don’t think he had .. since it didn’t ... I don’t think it really worked that well ..I think in the first episode, Michael, when he goes for Tayla? I think that’s pure instinct – I don’t think it would necessarily work for him, you know .. he’s a flawed wraith and a flawed human, but a perfect hybrid.
Q: Thank you.
Q: So, my question is, first of all are you aware of the fan films? There’s at least one fan film I know which is about your series, Enterprise.
C: Excuse my accent, (high pitched response) Really?
Q:Yes, it was shown here at the convention today.
C: How was it?
Q: Pretty good
C: Yeah? How was I?
Q: Excellent.
C: Yeah? I don’t remember it (laughs and whoops)
Q: The fan film which we saw earlier today was like a stop animation, it was a German guy who made this using like these action figures of all of you, and he built little bridges .. it looks pretty good.
C: Was I a bit stiff?
Q: Well, it looks like you had a stiff demeanour. (audience laughs) No, no you were great.
C: (laughs) Careful, man, you’re treading in some warm water.
Q: I haven’t finished yet. Um, it was a German guy who did this so I guess the voices are a little strange, but I understand it’s being dubbed into English. ..
C: By Germans?
Q: No, no – actually it’s being dubbed into English by another fan film group maybe you’ve heard of them, Star Trek New Voyages ...
C: Yes, I have.
Q: Yes, I actually represent them in Germany, by coincidence, and I ..
C: That’s it, you’re talking about it, that’s the coincidence here? (laughs)
Q: No, no – the guy who is doing your voice is Ron Boyd, who is er, a Canadian but apparently he’s giving a pretty good imitation of your voice (Connor’s pulling faces)
C: Alright.
Q: Unless you want the job of doing it yourself, of course.
C: (Laughs) I think that’s awesome, these fan productions, from what I’ve seen, they look pretty good.
Q: Yeah.
C: And they’re fun, huh.
Q: Absolutely.
C: Awesome, that’s really what it should be about, because you ain’t getting paid, huh.
Q: Unfortunately not.
C: It should be a lot of fun!
Q It’s lots of fun..so in retrospect.. does that mean when you get paid, it’s not so much fun?
C: (deadpan) Oh no, it’s a lot more fun (audience laughs and claps)
Cause you get to drive to the fun part in a much better car than you have if you’re working and not being paid for the fun stuff.
Q: I suppose that’s true, and you get the extras of T’Pol as well.
C: You don’t have T’Pol?
Q: Well, in that sense there is a T’Pol, but it’s kind of stiff (audience laughs)
C: Right ... That’s a shame. How’s her voice?
Q: Well, we’re waiting for her to come back to the convention so we can ask her if she can take on the job herself
C: okay, good luck! (laughs) That’s good.
Q: Ok
C: Awesome.
Q: So you should look out for it.
C: Do you have a card?
Q: Just look up Star Trek New Voyages de – for Germany, that’s our site, we’ve got a link to there
C: Alright. Great, thank you.
Q: Good evening, I’m Sabrina.Nice to see you.
C: Hi Sabrina, how are you?
Q: Fine, and you?
C: I’m good.
Q: That’s great. Temperature’s ok?
C: What? It is, it’s a little warm. Otherwise, I’m not bothered, I’ve got water, I’ve got a chair.
Q: Okay, so what did I want to ask. You talked about your wife.
C: I did?
Q: You did.
C: When? (audience laughter) Just now?
Q: Yes. About 15 minutes. You always have the newest technology in the house .. and that makes me now ask a question because I’m in the 10th year with my husband, How long are you married and what do you do and your wife to keep it work. (big laugh and face from Connor)
C: (deep voice) Five years and it’s none of your goddamned business. (audience laughs)
No, (normal voice) Five years later in May, and what do we do to keep it working, umm, you know she’s the only girl that I’ve ever really chased, and I just keep chasing her, you know, I mean, that’s – you know, it’s good to think that your wife’s sexy, that’s a good thing, um, and you know listen, you’ve got to talk to each other, and you’ve got to realise, you know, you’re in it for the long run and whatever petty things that come up, you know aren’t that big a deal – unless you’ve done something really bad (laughs) and it’s also a matter of just total respect, you know, here’s the thing that works in my house, that’s the way I grew up, it’s fifty-fifty – you know, I mean, I made all the money, She did a whole lot of other stuff I didn’t want to do, you know what I mean, it’s everything, no decision is ever made by me alone, and I think, personally I think that’s the secret, you know, it’s continuous, constant even playing field and respect. (Audience claps)
Q: Thank you.
C: And you gotta chase their tail – I hope she doesn’t hear this somehow. Now I’ve said that.. I’m sorry
Q: Can you hear me.
C: Yes, we’re done with that part, go ahead!
Q: I’ll repeat again. Another Stargate question. In Germany we have Season 4 at the moment so we don’t know how this ends
C: (interrupts) Come on, you know what, hang on a second, did you hear what he said? So, it’s the end of Season 4 and you don’t really know what happens – are you serious? (audience laughs) – Really? you don’t go online? You’re the most tech savvy people on the earth, internet-savvy folks on earth I’ve heard this a number of times today and I’m thinking, Oh, shit, I’d better not say anything.
Q: Okay. In science fiction everything is possible so I want to know will we be able to see Michael in the upcoming Stargate Atlantis movie or as a guest in the Stargate: Universe.
C: (pauses) Yep. (cheers from the audience)
Here’s the thing about me, oh, see, I can’t talk about this because you guys haven’t seen, or don’t know what’s going to happen, whatever.(audience laughs) Here’s what I think, what does happen in Season 5, and the end of it, and they’ve gotten to the movies, I will say this much, Michael I think is far too smart not to have cloned himself; a lot, so any situation he finds himself in – there’s another one. I really think that. If he didn’t do that? Shame on him! That’s very short sighted – he’s cloned everybody else.
Q: Thank you
Q: I have another question about Michael. Some time ago we had a long discussion about the epic problems of Michael of course, I want to know what you, Connor, think about these problems.
C: Well, I want to know what you think the problems are? So, I can answer those questions.
Q: Turning a wraith into a human, taking all of his memories, lying to him ..
C: It didn’t work, it didn’t work
Q: Terrible.
C: I’ll tell you what I, Connor, the actor thinks was a bit of a problem with what happened is that he spent a lot of time saying how angry Michael was at them for doing this to him – I feel like we should have moved on a little bit, I feel like there were more stories to tell than him just coming back a couple of times a year and saying, “Goddammit, you did this to me”, which he says verbatim almost every time they see him, And I, I, I wished a little bit that it had gotten, widened its scope a little bit to what his potential was in terms of being a real threat to that place and not just being, “I’m not doing this, because you guys did this to me”. They did do that to him and it’s a serious issue but, there were other, you know, there was other things they could have done.
Q: Do you think they were right of them to do this?
C: To do what, to Michael? I think it’s a fascinating dilemma – it brings to question for me, having a topical situation where if you think about it you can kind of bring it to right now, you ask, especially what we’ve been going through the last eight years, you ask the question of what responsibility morally and ethically you owe your prisoners and do they deserve to be treated humanely by your own code and that dilemma I find fascinating, And the fact that they introduced that into the show I think was kind of mirroring what is going on in the world with Iraq and all that nonsense we were pulling – when I say we, I don’t – look I’m an American but I was pissed off about that. So, was it right to do that to him? They were definitely trying to eliminate the threat now, morally and ethically did they have a right to do that? I think that’s a good thing to explore and I don’t think you have to have an answer to it, but I think the exploration’s what’s key ... so we can all come to our conclusions.
Q: Thank you. (audience applause)
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi
Q: So.
C: I’m going to take my coat off. I’m not going to take my pants off, but I will take my coat off.
(audience whoops) Stop It!
Q: So.You got pregnant.
C: Yes I did.
Q: Not even Kirk got pregnant and ..
C: I’m one up on him now, don’t I.
Q: I just want to know, the day you got that script did you actually go, why do I have to be knocked up?
C: That was our third episode, of the whole show. And at that point, I was tickled to pieces to have a big part. Two of the first three episodes were kind of big for me and when I found out that I was going to be pregnant I thought, that’s awesome, because, you know, it’s one of those fish out of water things and that is always fun to do and to the point where I got so into it there’s a couple of scenes in the episode that weren’t written one was that I’d started to just cry at the dinner table for no particular reason at all (Connor sobs) and the other was when I walked into engineering and this guy had done absolutely nothing wrong he was just standing there and I lit into him about some safety mechanism on the elevator. I kind of put those things in because I was like we’ve got to do this man we can’t make me eat pickles or anything you know, we’ve got to do some of those things that uhh, apparently some women do (audience laughs) when they’re pregnant, umm, I don’t know – I thought it was fun – but I loved doing it – I had a great time. It was a funny episode I thought.
Q: Yes, it was. Do you get reactions from fans, female fans of the show - thank you, you got it!
C: (laughs) Every single woman I come across goes “Thank you Connor, you got it (audience laughs) you got what it’s like (clapping) you got exactly what it’s like being pregnant!” (laughs) one of my proudest moments on Enterprise. No, I’ve never had a woman come up and say that to me even once (laughs).
I have had this, (low voice) you have no idea! (audience laughs)
Q: Thank you.
Pause.
C: Somebody dropped their pants.(audience laughter, and Connor) I’m killing myself up here.
Q: You know what I am?
C: Yeah, you’re one of the green ladies (audience laughs) Right? It’s not my first rodeo. Yeah, you’re from that episode where the green ladies came in and did their whole feminine wile power thing that didn’t work on Trip – right? (laughs) It worked. (audience laughs and claps) I just had to save Enterprise.
Q: Okay, I have a question to you. Umm, how was it for you, umm when Enterprise go to the end and didn’t continue.
C: How did I feel about when it was cancelled? Is that your question?
Q: Yeeah
C: I didn’t quite hear you. I didn’t quite hear you.
Q: I’m sorry.
C: Say it again I didn’t quite hear you.
Q: ahhh
C: Do it again, it’s ok. Listen, you got up here in a two piece bathing suit you can ask the question again. Think you got embarrassed. Can’t you? Ask the question again, I didn’t hear you.
Q: No problem, I will repeat it. Um, how do you feel, what’s your emotion when Enterprise go to the end and didn’t continued.
C: I was bummed, I was bummed. I, you know the thing about Enterprise not continuing was that I really felt like uh, we had really hit our stride in the fourth year, and kind of, I guess historically that was the case for a lot of the series, the franchise, it took a few years to kind of figure out what the show was gonna be and I thought in our fourth year we were hitting on all cylinders and (audience claps) yeah, thank you – it’s funny, I’ve heard more comments now that it’s been gone for a while that people who were probably at the time like, I don’t like it, like it. You know, I’ve gone back and watched it again and – it’s a damned good show. You know, I’m really proud of it, I’m really proud of what we did.(more clapping)
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you. (clapping)
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi Pam.
Q :Hi. Thank you for remembering my name.(Connor laughs) Other than Star Trek and Stargate you’ve done a lot of guest appearances in other shows, can you tell me which one you liked best and which role you’d really like to play.
C: um, I liked the part on Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles that I did, that was fun um, obviously ... you guys haven’t seen it um, but I liked 24 a lot, that was a really, that was sort of a different thing for me to play he didn’t seem to have that much strength about him umm, so it was nice to try and find that reality, um, but what I’d like to play? (blows out) A doctor, a lawyer, or a cop, or a teacher – you know what the funny thing is that you come across these roles sometimes, like in pilot season that, it doesn’t really matter what it is it all comes in the writing – you know when you find a role, not even necessarily a role but a project that is interesting to you, you, you know you really put your hard hat on and get to work and you want to get it because it’s good and there’s enough crap out there that to be involved in good projects is pretty much what it’s all about, I think. Um, and I think I’ve been pretty fortunate even in the guest star stuff that I’ve done that I’ve got to be a part of good shows and uh, you know you just, listen, being an actor I mean, seems so glamorous doesn’t it, you know, it’s a lot, it ebbs and flows sometimes you’re getting good stuff sometimes you have to go “I am not going to audition for this piece of crap”, but um, you know, you’ve got to pay the bills, like everybody else, there’s things you don’t want to do sometimes. My porn career was (audience laughs) rather successful, it wasn’t fulfilling. Yeah, it’s hard to say what would I like to do? I’d like to be on a really good long running show or make awesome movies (clapping) or on the stage, some Shakespeare, Chekhov or Shaw, you know Ibsen.
Q: Thank you.
C: Thank you
Q: Hello thank you for coming to Germany.
C: Thank you. It’s nice to be here.
Q: I have a question about Star Trek and some Star Trek series are closed, the Classic series is closed, and goes to movie the big screen and the Next Generation is closed and goes to the big cinema – do you see any chance that Enterprise goes to the Big Screen, to the cinema in any time?
C: Hey, listen, never say never I mean the Original series the fact that it got made into a movie well is thanks to you guys
Q: I think many fans has a little hope that Enterprise come back
C: Well let’s try to make the cartoon first (audience laughs and claps) make the cartoon...... you know, you’ll build up the audience with the cartoon and then um, for some reason somebody is going to throw millions of dollars to have you make a movie and that’s kind of a track I think we should go on but, nobody’s listening to me!
Q: Okay, thank you
C: I don’t, you know, it’s already gone past us, it’s already gone past us to a whole era this new movie is so, I haven’t seen it yet but it’s so different it’s for a new generation, a new audience, it’s not, it’s for us, but not - Enterprise has nothing to do with it and you know to be honest with you, let’s put it to bed, I mean, I mean let’s move on – I want to move on. I mean, I like coming here but I’m on ... no? You’re all dead silent – “What is he talking about!” (laughter) You’ve already got me one. Go ahead I’m sorry. Got jetlag and it’s coming out in me.
Q: Hi, I’m Greta and I want to ask two questions actually first of all Jeffery Combs and Marc Alaimo told us about special moments when they realised they wanted to be an actor and I want to know if you had one of those yourself.
C: Yes it’s kind of funny actually – so I’d never read a play, I’d been to two musicals one was ‘ A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum’ and one was ‘Cats’. And I went to college to play football, American football and so I’m in my sophomore year in college, and I don’t have that great a time playing football, it hurts (laughter) and uh, so I’m kind of, I don’t have a major, I don’t know what to do with my life I’m kind of floundering in college, you know, a short period of getting by and so I go to a party and I start talking to this girl, it’s kind of where it all starts isn’t it, she’s like why don’t you audition for a play and I’m thinking, are you going to be there? She said she was going to be there so I went home, for Thanksgiving weekend and my parents had actually met doing ‘Blithe Spirit’, a Noel Coward play and uh, so my mom worked with me on this play, it’s a play called, it’s a male version and female version of Lone Star with Landry Burton, it’s a great play, two plays. So I go back and I walked in and nobody’s ever seen me before I was at a small university and I went in and literally I something happened, I just had somehow something clicked I was able to tell the story through me somehow, I don’t know how to explain this really but I walked out of there that night convinced that I was going to be an actor and I walked out of the audition hall kind of like yelled up at the heavens to thank them for letting me know what I was going to do with the rest of my life however poor I may be and I quit football the next day I walked into my coach’s office and I was kind of like I don’t want to play football anymore, and he said why, and I said,” I want to be an actor”. He said “what?”, “I want to be an actor”, he said “have you ever done this before?”, I said “no, but I really think I can do it!” (laughter) and fortunately they were super supportive, they came to see all my plays and then I decided I wanted to test my mettle to see if I was any good, so I got accepted into the National Theatre Institute in Connecticut, the Gino Neal Centre, I thought acting with Gino was the cream of the crop that could get in, and they weren’t that great, they weren’t any better than me, so I was convinced that, yeah, I can do this, and I also had a great deal of support from my family and uh, here I am. (audience claps)
Q: My second question is more a comment really. I watched Star Trek when I grew up, mostly TNG and I think it was one of the reasons why I became a scientist myself so as a scientist I wondered if it was hard or funny or exciting for an actor who has no connection with science to do stuff
C: Is it that obvious! What do you mean? I’m kidding. Um, what’s it like playing a scientist? I’ll tell you what’s really good about it is that on several occasions we had NASA we had astronauts come by and they would say the same things that you just did, they were inspired by Star Trek to do what they were doing great things you know they were building things I couldn’t even imagine and going off into space in the shuttle and we even had engineers coming from JPL the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California coming in and saying these things and you’d ask what they do and they would explain what they were doing it was the most remarkable stuff and every time they came in they were always so thrilled to be there, they were thrilled to be there because they were coming to the epicentre of what inspired them to do what they were doing and I’ve got to tell you that’s one of the things I’m most proud of that’s sort of a by product of doing the show that you know, honest to God if you can inspire somebody to do something like that or anything that’s positive for the world and the universe, I mean you kind of knock one of those things down and your life gets worth and I feel like I kind of did that and I’m pretty proud of that (clapping) the other side of that coin is I had to take a, what is it, geology course and a math course in college to substitute for the science course that I dropped - five times (audience groans) because I was flunking it.
Q: Hi Connor, it’s Kurt. I just have a question what was the most unforgettable experience in your life, besides Fedcon. (audience laughs)
C: (flippant) I don’t know. Um, the most remarkable experience of my life – the birth of my son, and marrying my wife.
Q: Thank you.
C: Winning next week’s lottery in California which is 220 million dollars. (laughter)
Q: Hi. I have a question.Yesterday was my birthday ..
C: (Interrupting loudly) Happy Birthday! And a one, two, three (leads the singing) Happy Birthday to you, Come on ! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday – what’s your name?
Q: My name’s Jessica
C: Jessica, Happy Birthday to you!
Q: I’m eighteen now.
C: Happy Eighteenth!
Q: Thank you so much.
C: Is that all you wanted to say?
Q: Yes (audience laughs) Thanks!
C: It was? Glad I could help!
Q: Hi Connor. You’re actually one of my favourite actors from Enterprise – good job.
C: Thank you.
Q: And also on Stargate: Atlantis, ok. (laughter) it’s good, it’s good
C: Thank you
Q: I know you didn’t write the episodes as an actor but I really liked Season 4 of Enterprise better or more the stories very good except the Season opener.
C: Season opener?
Q: In the Storm Front
C: What happened? (laughter) I’m not kidding – what happened.
Q: Time travel, and Nazis.
C: Oh.
Q: Do you have any thoughts about that. I know you’re an actor, you didn’t wrote this – Brannon Braga...
C: (interrupts) Say that again.
Q I beg your pardon?
C: Say what you just said again.
Q: uh
C: I know you’re an actor, you didn’t write it, I know you’re an actor, you didn’t write it. I didn’t write it. (applause) Was it dumb? I wasn’t in it very much.
Q: I know. That’s ok. I think the German fan base of Star Trek is very strong and I think that episode pissed off a lot of us, well, I was angry about it, I’m sorry.
C: Hey, listen, you know what, I would be too – you’re absolutely right
Q: Thanks,thanks a lot. (clapping)
C: The great thing about you all – you fans – is that you’re not quiet, you know you say your opinions, and you don’t just say it at these, you say, you write letters to the studio, you write letters to the show, and I think that’s very important and um yeah, listen, offensive stuff is offensive stuff, and you should speak out anytime it happens – that’s your responsibility so yeah, I agree with you – dumb, dumb.
Q: Hi Connor, my name’s Tomas, just a short question, I’ve been married for 2 years and every once in a while I get into a conversation with my wife about you (audience laughs)
C: That’s great. I don’t know where this is going a short but that’s ...
Q: Give me a second. It’s always the same with ‘he’s such a sweet guy’ ‘yes’, ‘he’s so sweet’, ‘yes’, I said to her, he’s there at Fedcon and we can ask him a question and see him really close and she said (mimics her giggling)
C: Where is she?
Q: She is over here and I thought I can ask you if you ...
C: (addressing the girl) You should stand up now you know – because you’re a part of this.(applause)
Q: I just wanted to ask you if you could give her a hug? Give it to her really ..
C: I’ll help you out, I’ll help you out. I’ll help you out. (Connor jumps down from the stage, goes into the audience and hugs the girl) (Prolonged applause and whoops)
Bet you didn’t know that was coming. That’ll be five cents.
Q: Hello, Connor.
C: Hi (laughing). Is that from Star Wars? Wait a minute, wait a minute – go ahead.
Q: Hello Connor, My name is Mark.
C: Hi Mark.
Q: I’m very nervous to speak now to you but my question is could you share with us some of your memories of working with Scott Bakula. (member of audience heckles, “boring!”)
C: Get out! (laughter) I love that song. Yeah, working with Scott Bakula, I think I learned everything I know about how to behave as a professional in this business from him, not that I acted like a jerkoff beforehand but he never raised his voice, you know, he just, you know, commanded respect, he came to work, did his work he had his family away from work, and I think he handles his fame extremely well. And, all his decisions kind of centred around his family and uh, and beyond that he’s just one of the most stand up honest gracious dead sexy men you’ll ever meet (laughter) he’s a great guy, really – I uh, there’s a special place for him in uh heaven – not right now! But whenever that’s happening. Be fine. Help me out here. (applause)
Q: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the impressions.
C: My pleasure.
Q: Hello.Um. I want to ask you if you could tell us what you are doing currently.
C: Um. Currently I’m doing a show called ‘Lincoln Heights’, um, er ,I play a, again it’s one of those where you don’t know what is going to happen to it, it’s a new detective, I get to play a cop (laugh and applause) It’s a, I’ve had a couple of episodes on the show called Lincoln Heights and you know, I guess if they like me they’ll bring me back, and if they don’t they’ll shoot and kill me. (laughter). Well, thank you.
Q: Hi Connor.(loudly)
C: Hi. You guys are supposed to have a microphone, huh.
Q: Yeah, I’m used to microphones in some kind of way. So this is my first Fedcon, I’ve got a question of course, that’s why I’m standing here, I want to know which question you never get asked that you wanted to get asked, and what you would answer to it. (laughter and applause)
C: What’s your favourite colour? I don’t think anybody’s ever asked me so there you go.
Q: So what is your favourite colour.
C: It’s blue, no it’s green, blue-green.
Q: Thank you.
C: I have been asked, almost everything under the sun – and a few other questions. (laughter) So, yeah. And you know the thing is I, you know, I encourage anybody to ask me anything and if I don’t want to answer I won’t, and I’ve done that before too. So, don’t ask me for those.
(Connor blows down microphone) Uh, has anyone else got a question for me? Is that it? Are you running up to the mike? Or are you just leaving!
Q: Hi Connor.
C: Hi.
Q: I wanted to ask what was your thought if you read on a script that “Connor will die”. (she then freaks out as she realises she’d said ‘Connor’ instead of ‘Trip’! ) I meant Trip! (lots of laughter)
C: Well, I don’t think I’d be very happy about that! (laughter) first off ... and then I’d probably ask for a rewrite, and if that didn’t work I’d go to the producers. Then I’d quit. What did I think about when I found that Trip died, in the final episode? It being the final episode, and it being a lot about my character? I was fine with it. I mean, the show was ending, in the finale it was going to make my character come full circle and put that character to rest – yeah – that’s ok. Um, it was too bad that they had to do that but, I do think somebody had to go – (softly) and it was me.(pulls a face, audience goes ahhh!) You have seen Season 4 right? (people shout no, or laugh etc) Ah, crap, are you sure you’ve never seen it?
Q: Thanks.
C: Thank you.
Q: Hello.
C: Hi.
Q: What is the funniest thing that happened on the Star Trek set.
C: The funnest thing? We all had a lot of fun just hanging out with each other but there was one thing that we did to Scott, that was, I thought, pretty cool. So he had, you might have heard this, he had done a Canada Dry Ginger Ale commercial, back in the day, when he was a song and dance man, and so they got hold of the commercial and they got hold of these green bottles that it came in from like Arizona, and they put labels on it – and they printed off the lyrics to this little song and very quickly taught us all how to do the dance so Scott walks in to work, it was a bridge day so we were all there, cue the music and we all do the thing and you know there’s like fifteen plasma screens on that bridge, right all playing on, that commercial was playing on so Scott walks in ready to go to work, and he’s like, oh my God! That was pretty funny. And then one time we all dressed up as the Rocky Horror picture show and ‘do the timewarp again’ – who was I? In the Rocky Horror Picture Show. (someone calls out Rocky) No, I was the blond dude with the blond wig and gold lame shorts. You know – the body – is that Rocky? (people say yes) Oh, I was Rocky! (laughter). Wait a second, I wasn’t Franken-furter Frankenfurter?, you’re right I was Rocky! (Connor laughs) (someone calls out “Have you seen pictures of that?”) God, I hope not. I think that they made sure there were no cameras! (Someone calls pity!) Boy, a pity, believe me!
Q: Hi. Did you ever take a role that you later regretted taking?
C: Never.
Q: Why not? (Audience laughs incredulously)
C: Do you want me to take a role I would regret later?
Q: I mean, probably you’ve taken a role that you didn’t like very much playing?
C: I’ll tell you one, this is, this is no I didn’t regret that, no. I was the face of Japan Tobacco for four or five years. Japan Tobacco’s Japan’s .. tobacco (laughter) they do cigarettes and I you know I wrestled with that but the whole campaign was about if you’re gonna smoke be conscientious, the entire campaign was I would set up walking around the world with these leather suitcases in this old suit, I would sit down with this goofy look on my face, and I’d take out my zippo lighter I’m about to, you’d never see a cigarette, I’d take out my zippo lighter and I’d be sitting next to some old dude, or some pregnant woman or birds (laughter), birds don’t like smoke, and I would choose not to smoke, and put the lighter away. I think the tag line was ‘Consideration breeds Satisfaction’. So, I was able to you know, make my deal with the devil on that one, and it helped me survive for five years. Uh, so, yeah, if I, if there’s one that makes me kind of go, you know, I had to talk to my parents about it, I had to ask them about it, seek their opinion and er,... shouldn’t have done that one. (laughter).
Q: Hi Connor. Ooh, that was very loud. I would like to know do you remember anything from your Geology class?
C: I like rocks.
Q: Me, too!
C: I like dirt (Connor coughs)
Q: Me, too.
C: (Coughs) No I don’t. No.
Q: That’s very sad.
C: I remember that I passed.
Q: That’s very good. If you want to know more about rocks I’m here.
C: Ok! (Connor coughs) Forgive me, I caught a cold from my son. One more question, make it a good one, because my voice is ... (coughs again). (audience goes aaahh and laughs). I’m kidding. (someone gives Connor a sweet, Connor eats it), That’s not a lozenge, that’s a piece of candy! (muffled voice while he eats it) It’s good though! (laughter) Thank you.
Q: I want to ask you, what was your worst, and what was your best audition ever?
C: Ever?
Q: Yes.
C: I really have to say one of my worst auditions ever was my first audition for Enterprise. I’m not joking, it was terrible. I had, I had three auditions that day, for three pilots and for pilots they usually give you a lot of copy, a lot of pages to learn so I had to learn about twenty five pages of dialogue for these various shows and Enterprise happened to be the last one on that day. It was a really hot day, I had an old 1968 Skylark with no air conditioning, and the only window that went down was on my driver’s side, and it only went down halfway. It didn’t have air conditioning. So I got in, and it was the one audition I really didn’t work on, I didn’t , well to be honest I didn’t care, I didn’t know anything about it and it wasn’t my, I didn’t think it was something that I’d be good at, and I went in there and I did the audition and, uh, the casting director Ron Surma, said to me, he gave me a couple of notes, had me do it again and said can you come back in an hour? I was like (he pulls face, laughter) it’s going to be just wetter, and hotter if he pulls me back in an hour – I didn’t say that to him, i said Yeah! Sure, great. So I got out of there and I called my agent and I said that from now on I’m not doing three auditions in a day because I just ruined this one – I came back in (noise of Klingon drinking group out in the corridor outside) (it’s just Klingons – shouts from the audience) Dirty, stinky Klingons! (laughter and applause) Screwing up my story! Anyway, so the audition’s obviously a little bit better – the best audition I’ve ever had? I don’t know if you’re familiar with a play called Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. I, I, I er, got an audition for this play at the Huntingdon theatre in Boston and it’s a very, it’s a pretty difficult play by Tom Stoppard he writes pretty difficult plays and I went in there, and I had my first audition and I nailed it, but I could tell they didn’t want to hire me, I could tell they wanted somebody – I know this, they wanted somebody better looking (audience goes aahh, someone shouts, ‘not possible’) It’s alright, and uh, so they called me back, but this time they were going to have me read the entire first act so I went down and prepared the entire first act in a couple of days – that’s a lot of work – I went in there and I kicked the hell out of it, it was awesome and he said keep going. Humph. I was like alright, to hell with it, I just kept going – We finished the second act and at that point he stopped me and was like (Connor does an exaggerated sigh) “You really want this and I really don’t want to give it to you”, (audience laughs) and I said, “Yes, I do”. He said, alright, if you want it, maybe we’ll give you a call, (audience groans) they’re not going to tell you in the room, at least not in regional theatre. They’re not going to go, Oh, God you’re a star come back to our theatre! So, I went home that night and It didn’t matter to me if I got it or not, at that point, because I knew I’d nailed it and they called, and I found out later that they didn’t want to give it to me, they had two other guys they were begging to be good – please be a little bit better so we can cast you – and not him.(laughter) But, it was one of my proudest accomplishments doing that whole production and er, yeah, that was probably my best audition ever. That’s it. Ok, ladies and gentlemen, that’s me. (huge cheers and applause).
Connor Trinneeeeeeeeer (Mark Lee)
Faith of the Heart theme, Connor takes his bows and waves.
