Weller Took "Paxton" Role as "Tip of the Hat" to Nimoy

Who would have thought that Peter Weller does not consider himself "a sci-fi guy"? The slender steely-blue-eyed actor who rose to fame by portraying "a walking heap of scrap metal" in 1987's "Robocop" was initially hesitant to sign on to a guest starring role in Star Trek: Enterprise.

"I'm not interested, really, in science fiction," Weller said in a recent interview for STARTREK.COM and the U.K.'s Star Trek Magazine. "I don't read science fiction, I'm not a Trekkie, I don't go to science fiction movies. I don't disdain it, but it's not my métier. I like noir thrillers and movies of intimate murder."

And yet, the actor's gaunt face is probably most recognized in the genre of science fiction, despite a long and varied list of credits. Before "RoboCop" he played the title role in "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" (which he described as "a comedy which posed as a science-fiction film") in 1984, and also starred in "Leviathan" (1989), "RoboCop 2" (1990), and "Screamers" (1995). And then he took the lead in the Showtime sci-fi series Odyssey 5, created and produced by Manny Coto, who went on to become the fourth-season showrunner of Enterprise.

So naturally, Coto was anxious to get his friend, one with such a hefty sci-fi pedigree in spite of himself, onto Star Trek while he could. And he found an opportunity with a two-parter that would turn out to be the next-to-last adventure of Captain Archer's Enterprise. Part I, "Demons," airs this Friday, and it concludes next week on May 13 with "Terra Prime."

"He said to me, 'I want to write this thing for you. Would you come on Enterprise and do this?'" Weller recounted. "I said, 'Manny, it's not my thing, man. I'm not a big sci-fi guy. I did your other thing [Odyssey 5] because of the humanism in it, because it was a story about people and how their lives changed. I'm not interested in science fiction.' And he kept saying, 'Oh, no, you gotta do it, you'll be immortalized.'"

How Coto supposedly coerced Weller into doing the gig is already legendary. At this year's Grand Slam convention in March, Coto confessed that he knew of Weller's desire to direct (which he did a couple of times on O5) and waved that carrot at him. "I said ... 'Season Five, you can direct two episodes!' And he's like, 'Great, all right!'" Coto said at the convention. "So he signs the deal, and the day after he signs the deal, we get the cancellation. He calls me up, 'Ya hornswoggled me!'" (Related story).

"Yeah, I said, 'Ya hornswoggled me.' It's true, it's really true," Weller confirmed with a laugh. "They were gonna throw me one or two to direct, then it got cancelled. So I said, hell, I'll do it anyway, y'know, because it's the last two [episodes before the series finale]. I really did it, though, not just as a favor to Manny. I mean, I'm honored that they asked me to do it, and I had a ball, because the cast is great and the crew is fantastic," but he had another underlying motivation which had to do with another old friend with a Star Trek connection.

In 1973, fresh out of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, Weller was cast in a play called "Full Circle" directed by the late Otto Preminger. And the star of that play was Leonard Nimoy.

"We both suffered the slings and arrows of Otto — who, bless his heart, did some good movies, though he was a better producer than he was a director. But he was mean, Otto. He was mean to Leonard, and he was mean to me. But Leonard was like a big brother, like a mentor, man, he was really there for me. That was my third job, I had just come out of training and I was lost, and Leonard took me by the hand. He made a big impression on me. So I did it [the Enterprise episodes] as sort of a tip of the hat to Leonard."

"And, it turned out to be good," Weller continued. "Also, LeVar Burton was directing ["Demons"], and he's an old pal. So, you know, a lot of things convinced me to do it."

In the two-parter, Weller plays "John Frederick Paxton," the leader of a human isolationist movement called Terra Prime. He directs the insurrectionist activities from his mining colony on the Moon, taking his inspiration from the 21st-century speeches of the notorious Colonel Green (who, in an expansion of previously established Trek lore, "euthanized" many thousands of radiation victims after the third world war, presumably to save humanity from the scars of mutation.) As talks take place among several species in San Francisco to form a tentative alliance of planets, Paxton threatens to destroy Starfleet Command unless all non-humans leave Earth within 24 hours. And — as the UPN promos revealed last week — Paxton uses the birth of a Vulcan-human hybrid child (somehow, the offspring of T'Pol and Trip Tucker) to stir up anti-alien sentiments on Earth.

"I play a misunderstood moralist," Weller said about his character, emphasizing that he never looks at any character as a "villain." "The 'social bad guys,' if you will, which Star Trek is so adept at developing, believe that they're right. You have other bad guys, like in 'Alien' or like serial killers, that kill just because it's in their nature to kill. But in Star Trek it's a higher consciousness of bad guy. They have an agenda. Paxton has a vision of how survival should be approached, and survival on the Earth means getting rid of all the aliens. Because they're 'bad.' Because they taint the blood, they threaten the natural selection of humanity."

Although he had no problem stepping into an unsavory role ("You make a 'substitution' ... You know, there are things in my world that I want shaped up. Everybody has their parameters of what's acceptable"), he doesn't back away from the ultimate moral of the story and its contemporary relevance.

"Look, I play a guy who's, for better or worse, a xenophobe, a guy who wants to, according to his paradigm, clean up the Earth and rid it of impurities. Now, call it what you will, but that's bigotry. He's a racist. He wants to get the funny-eared people and the weird-speaking crinkly faces out of the damn way, off the globe. Because he thinks the survival of Mother Earth depends on the continuity of the human gene. He thinks he's right, and a lot of people on this planet are inclined to agree with him. A lot of people in this country don't want Hispanics coming over here anymore, they think it's gotta be stopped. Well, you know what? You can't stop it. People will move. It's what makes the universe interesting. On our globe people move. You can regulate it, but you can't stop it. These people don't like cross-breeding and intermarrying and trading ideas, but that's what makes the world groovy. Another 500 years, there won't be any color distinctions anyway."

Weller's stint on Enterprise had the strange timing of taking place just after the announcement in early February that the show was cancelled. And the mood on the set was apparent. "Everybody was very melancholy," Weller recalled. "Most of the people had been working together for 18 years, man. It was like a family falling apart. It wasn't dreary, but, y'know, there was some sadness there."

He had nothing but praise for the professionalism of the cast and crew, though. "They were all talented, so talented." In particular, the principal actors he worked with — Jolene Blalock, Connor Trinneer and Scott Bakula — he called "Fantastic, intelligent, and sensitive people. And really good at what they do." He particularly admired how well Bakula kept up the spirits on the set and kept the work focused.

Again, "Demons" airs this Friday, May 6, on UPN at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. "Terra Prime" will run next Friday, May 13, at 8:00, and will be immediately followed at 9:00 by the final episode of Enterprise, "These Are the Voyages..." with special guest stars Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis.

If you enjoyed this interview with Peter Weller, there's more to come. Be sure to check out Star Trek Magazine, on sale July 21 in the U.K. and Eire.