Interviews Conducted by Robert J. Beck

How did you find it assimilating into America?

It was pretty easy actually especially being in America
for so many years before working full time so to speak.
It was after working on Enterprise for four years and
especially after 9/11 that for the first time that I
remember really feeling American if you will, I remember
thinking how that had changed me; I was going to work
in America everyday and working with Americans. That I
was no longer a British guy using America to make his
fortune. I’d actually become part of the fabric of the
country. It’s a very interesting question mate.

I’m guessing you’d like to think you’re quite different
from your character on the show?

Yeah I guess so. Malcolm was the very stiff
upper lip and buttoned down Brit and I’m not really that
at all. Well I mean I sort of am; I come from an Army
background and when I was 17 I was quite keen on
possibly joining the Army as a full-time career. My
Grandfather was a Brigadier and fought in both World
Wars and received an OBE. I went to stay with
Scott’s the Lagoon’s Guards when I was 17 and for a
couple of months I was an Under Officer Cadet in my
Cadet force at school and to be honest I based Malcolm
Reed on that young man.
I think at 17 I was quite serious minded about stuff like that. But I realised that I only really embraced the Cowboys and Indians part of being a solider [laughter] Then I went to live the life and everything was run by numbers and military sort of protocol and it wasn’t for me. Much in the same regard that I wanted to be a lawyer and read law at University. I read some law books before going and I went “This is nothing like Rumpole at the Bailey!” They say Politicians, Actors, Teachers, Lawyers; they’re all cut from the same cloth.

Supposedly your character on Enterprise was meant to be gay but this never materialised, what actually happened with this?

I think that was in the early dawn of internet bullshit [laughter] Not that there’s anything wrong with it Rob [laughter] I think that because the early thumb-nail sketches which came into the public view about this character called him shy around women and by-lines like that .There’s an old expression that if all you’ve got is a hammer then all you see is nails and I think that all those guys out there with hammers could only see the nails [laughter] So I think that’s were that got started really. Not that I wouldn’t have played him gay but there was no way at that point in UPN’s television history that they were going to put a gay man on Star Trek darling. It wasn’t a theme they were willing to get into I would imagine.

You auditioned for a part in the new Star Trek movie didn't you?

I did yeah. I don’t think they knew who I was [laughter] I think I went back a couple of times and I’ve got a feeling they did a bit of diligence and they went “oh sorry we didn’t know that” [laughter] The part got cut down to a voice over when I finally got to see it but before they got cut there were a couple of scenes where Kirk’s abusive father caused him to make a dash to the border as it were.

You also had a small part in Heroes, and I right in thinking that this role was originally larger?

I was slated to do about fifteen episodes of that show in the second season but dear Holt who played my mob boss; I remember he took umbrage about one line in one scene after three or four episodes and it all got a bit hot under the collar with the guy who had written it and our story line went away two episodes later [laughter] So it didn’t work out I’m afraid.

And recently you were in a B-Movie version of Sherlock Holmes, is that the right thing to call it?

Oh absolutely yeah it was just a free trip home [laughter] It was nice I had a couple of weeks in North Wales and I met co-star Gareth David-Lloyd too who is a very nice guy who was on Torchwood and the young girl Rachel Goldenberg who directed it was very smart and savvy. God knows Rob they made that film on twenty-five grand and a bottle of
beer [laughter] and I got the beer!