He runs the engineering section of the ship. He's from the South and he's a little bit weary of aliens for one. He's got a wry sense of humor too so he can be a little off-putting. He kind of likes to have a good time. The Vulcans had somewhat of a strained relationship with this point in our history with them, he kind of really carries that on his back, that's his chip on his shoulder. That makes the relationship with T'Pol, the Vulcan, complicated and fun to play. He definitely is a little uncomfortable, maybe sometimes squeamish around our friends out there.

Who is your character close to on the show?

I definitely have a relationship with Captain Archer because Trip looks up to him. He's known him for a long time, was hand picked by him to be on this mission. I hate to use a word like "mentor," but he's seen it all, done it all with the exception that this is a brand new thing. I think Trip definitely looks to the Captain.

Are you a Star Trek fan?

I watched the old one, I watched the old Star Trek. I didn't watch all of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Frankly, I haven't seen a lot of these aliens myself. So I am coming across these people on the set, and I'm like "Jesus, look at you!" So that's easy to do. But there is, I think, ingrained in the show itself a sense of awe and that we really are taking on the mantle that we are on a quest of discovery. So yeah, that's really easy to play, or it's really important to play or vital in the show. I think it energizes it in a way that's unintended. That energizes it in a way that keeps it buoyant. We're not used to anything, we're not used to our own ship. So all we know is that frankly we don't know.

What makes Enterprise different?

You got guns, you got aliens, you got a real fast ship and you don't know where you're going day to day. On Voyager, they were always trying to get home. We're not trying to get home. We are just out there seeing what we can find. It's a constant mystery. Everybody knows about Star Trek. I think everybody knows about it, everybody knows about the first one. And if you tell somebody that this is a prequel to the first one there's nothing like you've seen in the last few series. That alone, I think, will get a lot of people just to go, "well, what's going on." And if we are doing our job, which I hope and think that we are, come on, let's go for a ride!