Why Jason Isaacs first said no to 'Star Trek: Discovery'

Gulf News

Why Jason Isaacs first said no to 'Star Trek: Discovery'. English actor known for acting in franchises like Harry Potter and Star Wars, joins yet another iconic franchise with 'Star Trek: Discovery', which returns after it's mid-season break on Netflix on January 8. Here, he talks about his initial response to being offered the role of Captain Gabriel Lorca and what makes his Captain different from all those who came before him.   See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

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00:00I read in an interview earlier that you were opposed to the idea of joining Star Trek Discovery

00:07as a captain. Why was that and what changed your mind?

00:10I just didn't want to be a pale shadow of the brilliance that's gone before me. I grew

00:13up watching and worshipping Captain Kirk and I'm not big on reboots or remakes of things.

00:21But then when they told me the story and I saw the scripts, I realised it's a completely

00:24new show born of our troubled and difficult, divisive times and with something to say about

00:30the world we live in.

00:31You did grow up as a fan of the series. What were the specific elements that drew you to

00:36the show then?

00:37Well, when I was a kid I just loved the stories, they were fantastic. I guess looking back

00:40I probably was learning how to be a man from the essential dichotomy of Kirk and Spock,

00:46the rational and the animalistic. But I just loved the stories. Now, I'm an adult, when

00:51I see those original episodes, I realise how powerful they were. Political allegories

00:56and they were kind of moral conundrums and they had a lot for adults to engage with.

01:00But none of that, you know, I just thought they were fabulously entertaining.

01:03What can you tell us about your character on Star Trek Discovery?

01:06Well, the great joy of our show is it's serialised, meaning it's one 15 hour story, like a novel.

01:12And so the characters can't be summed up because they're rich and the behaviour and incidents

01:17have consequences. If somebody dies and you're upset, you're still upset the week after.

01:20The original series, everything reboots to zero. So I can tell you he's a guy who is

01:25trying to win the war. He's not looking to make any friends. He's surrounded by hippies

01:29and idiots. He thinks the people in charge of the Federation have no idea what they're

01:33doing and only he sees the scale of the threat. Other people might find him to be tough and

01:37amoral and doing whatever is necessary, by any means necessary. But as far as he's concerned,

01:45he's doing what needs to be done.

01:46Yeah, because by probably the end of episode six, we kind of really see how troubled he

01:51is as a person. Do you enjoy playing that moral ambiguity of that character?

01:56The only thing that's interesting to play as an actor is complication. You know, if

02:00you're saying what you mean and you're just saying, serving the plot, there's nothing

02:06to do as an actor. So the camera loves secrets. The camera loves when a character is saying

02:10one thing and means another. And the ideal situation is when there's a third thing going

02:14on that the character doesn't understand about himself and we get as an audience. And

02:18I think you have all that with Lorca. You have it with many of the characters in this.

02:21And that's when we're really engaged in a human story.

02:23What can audiences expect going forward from this season?

02:26We've been laying a lot of seeds and everything bears fruit and everything comes to a very

02:33dramatic head. You can build bigger drama if you tell a 15-hour story. There's a lot

02:39of crazy fan theories about there. Some of them are right, most of them are wrong. But

02:44the stakes get higher and I think the surprises get bigger.

02:48Do you have a message for your Star Trek fans?

02:50I get so intimidated by the fact that people, this is their legacy, they've protected

02:54for 50 years. What I really hope is there's a whole new generation of people who have

02:57never heard of Star Trek, never seen it before, maybe even weren't born when the last one

03:01was on. I just want people to have a good time watching it and it's a subliminal message

03:07of hope and not to judge people by the colour of their skin or their sexuality or their

03:12gender. We'll sink in and they'll change the world because it's a pretty bad place at the moment.

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