STARTREK.COM. Who are you and where are you from?

Tim Russ. Who I am, and where I'm from. Tim Russ, I was raised in the Air Force, so I don't have a home base to speak of. I moved all over the world when I was growing up, so I lived everywhere from Turkey to Taiwan. At home base here in LA for the last twenty years, so ...

Q. What came first — music or acting?

TR. I started playing music when I was sixteen, so I was actually playing music in high-school. I was actually making money playing music in high-school. It came about probably four or five years before the acting bug bit. They're somewhat related, so I think that one led to the other eventually.

Q. When did you become interested in acting?

TR. My acting interest began in high-school. I studied acting ... actually performing arts in college, which was St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. Studied four years at that theater, and then went to Illinois State University for graduate work for about a year — theater also. Then I moved to California after that. I moved to LA in '81, and then started to pursue it professionally. So it started way back in high-school, my interest in acting.

Q. How did you get cast on Star Trek?

TR. My history with the Star Trek scene goes back a ways, before Voyager. I mean I actually became involved with them by reading for Geordie LaForge's role initially when they were casting it, for Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman at the time. They went with LeVar Burton for that role, but Rick Berman had always liked the work that I'd done, and he wanted to eventually use me in the show somewhere. So for the next three years I sort of auditioned for the show, probably seven or eight times before they actually hired me to do one of the parts. And that was for the Next Generation series, working with Patrick Stewart on one of the episodes, and then from there to Deep Space Nine, doing a Klingon role, and then from there to the feature film Generations. And then subsequently, it was only a few months after that that they were going to cast for Voyager, so all of it came about and that part came down the pipe. Initially that part wasn't the right type for me. Initially that part was older. So I was not going to be able to read for it, I would not have been able to read for it. Then all of the sudden they changed the part. As soon as they changed the part, then they brought me in. The rest is obviously history, but it all came down to being a very long process of getting this part. Even before that, there's the process of having worked for thirteen or fourteen years before getting the role in the shows.

Q. What are the differences between playing a Klingon and a Vulcan?

TR. The two parts are so juxtaposed and there's a great deal of fun in both of them, because as a Klingon you can go over the top as much as you like, and really be belligerent, and get away with it. The Vulcan character is also fun because you play everything so dry, and so subtle. And it's always juxtaposed to the human beings that you work with, the other human characters. That can also be a lot of fun, just playing it as reserved, and flat, and dry and stoic as you can make it. And yet still have the wit or the sarcasm that may exist. So there's pluses to both sides, but definitely they're both interesting.

Q. What do you think is the essence of Star Trek?

TR. The storytelling element, and the twists, and then the differences in perception and the way that the human condition and perspective is changed and stretched and pulled within the Star Trek world. The way our societies are reflected, that is the foundation for Star Trek. Roddenberry's vision and what has been carried on throughout the series has always been pretty much the same. It's about the characters, what they go through, and it's also about what is being taught, what is being demonstrated through sci fi, through these fictional characters. Our society, and norms and mores are reflected through the stories. It's always been the case. And in some cases, just damn good science fiction stories.

Q. What episodes stand out for you?

TR. There was a couple of episodes I saw. One in particular on DS9 that I thought was very poignant. It had to do with a character who was... an alien character would come aboard the station, who was running from another bunch of his race, or from his planet — the people from his planet who were chasing him. And he was more or less the fox, and they were the hounds. They were trying to offer him sanctuary, and he didn't want it, because that would be disgraceful to him. So the whole thing was that his race was bred to be the fox, and they were bred to be the hounds, and that was the way it was supposed to be. And it was an honorable thing. So the whole interpretation of that — that was a very poignant sort of story. I was very, very impressed with it. There are some from the Original Series that were always, sort of, favorites, because that was what I had seen earlier on, when I was growing up, in syndication. And it was on for so many years and we all saw these shows and got to like them. But that was one of the more recent ones I thought was interesting.

Q. Do you have a favorite Voyager episode?

TR. One of the most defining stories that we had in Voyager for Tuvok's character I think was probably "Meld," earlier on, in which he mind-melded with the Bajoran character Suder, and as a result becomes more or less infected by the violence that exists in Suder. As a result Tuvok's character has to deal and wrestle with the violent, aggressive side of the Vulcan nature. And he had to really combat it in his quest for the reasons behind violence — why violence takes place, why people commit violent acts. That whole entire investigation process, and going through what he went through — the stresses and the torment of having to be himself aggressive and violent, and restrained. That was the most powerful things his character had to go through. We never really answered the question in the episode of why, which I really wanted to do, as an actor I thought it was important to, at some point in time, maybe answer that question, you know? Try to come up with something, anything. But there really wasn't. There wasn't an answer that was made. But that was one of the more, I think, defining episodes for him.

Q. What did you think about the Voyager finale?

TR. The two-part finale for Voyager was very cleverly put together because, true to form, consistent with the Star Trek doctrine, they told the story differently than what everybody was expecting. And I mean everybody — even some of our own cast members were not happy about not having a traditional, you know, fanfare sort of coming home sort of scene. And they just didn't do it. They deliberately did it differently. They chose to focus on the Captain's character and tell it from her perspective as opposed to telling it from the perspective of the whole ship and the cast. I thought that Tuvok's part in it was completely, again, totally unexpected and very interesting and a lot more challenging for me to perform than the standard stuff. As far as the series ending on its own, I mean as an ending as an actor, I really miss coming to the lot on a regular basis, and knowing everybody, and seeing everybody, working with all these people on a regular basis. I miss that a lot, because it was a sense of coming to a place you could call more or less home for that period of time. A home away from home, as we spent many, many hours here. I miss that a great deal. I, creatively, was very happy to move on and to have the opportunity to do other things. So those are the two sides, pluses and minuses of the show.

Q. Do you have a favorite captain?

TR. I've been asked who my favorite captain is on many occasions, and it's almost an impossible question to answer because all of them are so different. So I can't pinpoint which one I think is my absolute favorite. Obviously there's going to be a bias for Katie, because I worked with that character for so many years, and I grew up watching Kirk's character, initially, and enjoyed the maverick sort of characters that he had. It would be difficult to pick a captain, I would probably side more with perhaps which series I enjoyed the most. That would be an easier question to answer. I couldn't really select one captain.

Q. Do you have a favorite series?

TR. If I had to pick a series, I would probably lean toward the Original Series only because I think that the format of that series was very different. Number one, the show was longer. And if you watch the show and you watch the current shows, they're ten minutes shorter, at least, and still trying to tell a full story in that time. If you watch it, sometimes, I noticed at the very beginning of the series of Voyager that it seemed like the story went by so quickly, and there was very little time to really enjoy it or digest it. It's like eating Chinese food: you can eat a lot of it and you might not feel full at the end. I just didn't feel it was, sometimes, as fulfilling. I think we had some very, very strong and powerful stories, but the incorporation of the technical dialogue into the newer series versions, whereas the older series versions never used any of that. And yet we still told a story, even for a longer period of time. You got much more into the story back then, I think, than you could get into now. And perhaps if we had that kind of time now, and we had, perhaps, a little less of the emphasis on the technical dialogue just for the sake of dialogue, I think the stories would jump ten-fold in terms of what they were telling. You know, what the stories were.

Q. Would you like to do more Star Trek?

TR. If the hallowed halls of Star Trek called me to come in and do something, whether it's recreating or redoing this role here, or do something different, I would be more than happy to do it. Absolutely. Yeah.